I might be missing some questions, so please feel free to re-ask.
@london We will officially be shutting the L-band service down on December 16th. Who knows, the channel may still be available after that date.
Price: We are targeting a $99 retail price. We have a roadmap to cost-reduce with a slightly different design, but it won’t be a very feature-rich device. We have most of the parts on hand to built 1000 units, but we are waiting on the first Dreamcatcher 3 prototype to be assembled. After that, we’ll need to make a minor revision and then wait for the proto to be built. It’s looking like mid-January at this point.
rxOS will definitely not work with the service. We do intend to offer a more generic way for non-Outernet compute devices to receive the data stream. This will come after the Dreamcatcher 3.
@Tysonpower In the near term, we’ll be focusing on the core receiver. Our own integrated antenna/LNB will follow in the future. I’m trying my best to keep the retail price of Dreamcatcher 3 to $99.
- Hardware or software radio: We are using a hardware radio.
- We will be rolling out new beams as we ramp up production and distribution of the new receivers. We have not yet determined which beams to use, but that is something I am spending a lot of time now. We will likely need a total of 7 separate beams for global coverage. We’ll start with North America and follow very shortly with Europe. The other beams will be added once we can find distribution channel partners in those parts.
- We’ve had the DC2 outside in sub-zero temperatures and it’s been running with only minor hiccups.
@Konrad_Roeder There is always ADS-B reception and/or webSDR! The G-28 was only a test signal. We have not yet contracted for capacity on it. There are a host of options in North America from Telesat, SES, and Intelsat. We do want to provide truly national coverage with the North American beam. By the way, you won’t need a dish. A regular dish will only making pointing more difficult. You’ll be better off using a naked LNB, or fabricating a simple 20dB horn (maybe).
We will definitely still support APRS on the new Ku.
@kenbarbi Thanks for your vote of confidence. You understand and a very core-level why we are doing this. I’m frustrated that it’s taking so long to make these really important steps, but at least we are finally here. I will be sure to let everyone know about any future test signals.
@Konrad_Roeder Yes, you will definitely be able to see the signal in your favorite spectrum analyzer software. And I think eventually, some clever people will build a software demodulator.
@stienman Yes, the forum is the first place where news is shared. The add-on board was only for prototyping purposes. DC3 has the new radio integrated into the board; it’s replacing the RTLSDR. We are focusing on supporting only one polarization, as the antenna/LNB can easily be twisted to catch either V or H signals. That’s a single port LNB, by the way. The LNB does need to be driven by at least 12V. We are not keeping the LED strip on either DC or the radio. You’ll see why below.
@donde Definitely no dish will be required. I hate dishes. And most people hate pointing them. They are also to bulky ship in a cost-effective manner to individual end users. Definitely not portable.
@tylerhoot I mean 30kbps, as in kilobits per second, continuously. That comes to roughly 300MB over 24 hours.
By the way, this is just the early proto. DC3 has the radio integrated on to the board (and eliminates the L-band ports).
