open-weather automated ground station

usage

npm start

Explanation

Files

.env

Hidden file with AUTH_TOKEN property which is assigned to each device by open-weather.

config.json

This holds the basic configuration for each ground station. Properties include latitude and longitude, maximum distance from satellite to consider a "good pass", etc.

passes.json

This file contains information for upcoming and past NOAA satellite passes. It is updated using tle.js, and a cron job checks every minute in app.js to see if it should be recording based on this info. When it finishes, the recorded flag should be set to true.

recordings

WAV files are saved to this directory...

setup

raspberry pi

Install latest Raspberry Pi OS. At the time of writing this I am using v12 (Bookworm). It's probably best to stick to this version.
Use openweather for the username.
Enable SSH and I2C

sudo raspi-config
# then Interface, then see SSH and I2C options

You can test I2C with:

sudo i2cdetect -y 1

This will give you the address (likely 0x27) which should be used when initializing the device in the node project.

crontab rebooting

Using sudo, schedule a reboot every morning for 3am

sudo crontab -e
0 3 * * * /sbin/shutdown -r now

USB Drive

Format to Fat32 (not sure about these instructions)

sudo umount /dev/sda1
sudo mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n 'o-w' /dev/sda
sudo chown -R openweather:openweather /media/o-w/

lsblk # identify disk
sudo mkdir /mnt/o-w
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add to fstab:

/dev/sda1  /mnt/o-w  vfat  defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000  0  2

Reload and mount the drive

systemctl daemon-reload
sudo mount -a

create an ssh key for the raspberry pi and add it to github

software (quick way -- manual instructions below)

git clone https://github.com/prismspecs/open_weather-ags.git
cd open_weather-ags
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

check that it is working

nvim /home/openweather/cronlog.txt

software (manual way)

crontab

This ensures that the node project starts upon reboot.

crontab -e

@reboot /home/openweather/open_weather-ags/start_scheduler.sh

RTL-SDR v4 driver

According to the official quick start guide we must purge existing RTL-SDR drivers and install v4 ones anew. Note we are using rtl-sdr-blog drivers and not standard rtl-sdr which do not work with v4.

Purge:

sudo apt purge ^librtlsdr
sudo rm -rvf /usr/lib/librtlsdr* /usr/include/rtl-sdr* /usr/local/lib/librtlsdr* /usr/local/include/rtl-sdr* /usr/local/include/rtl_* /usr/local/bin/rtl_*

Install:

sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev git cmake pkg-config
git clone https://github.com/rtlsdrblog/rtl-sdr-blog
cd rtl-sdr-blog
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
make
sudo make install
sudo cp ../rtl-sdr.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo ldconfig

Backlist old drivers(?):

echo 'blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu' | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-dvb_usb_rtl28xxu.conf

Reboot!

reboot

SoapySDR

In broad strokes, First install SWIG so that the Python bindings are created when you build SoapySDR

sudo apt-get install python-dev-is-python3 swig

First install SoapySDR from GitHub using the wiki instructions

git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyRTLSDR.git
cd SoapyRTLSDR
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

Once SoapySDR is installed, test FM recording

sudo apt install sox
rtl_fm -f 104.6M -M fm -s 170k -r 32k -A fast -l 0 -E deemp -g 10 | sox -t raw -e signed -c 1 -b 16 -r 32000 - fm104-6.wav # FM radio station in Berlin

Node, nvm and NPM

sudo apt install -y build-essential libssl-dev
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.1/install.sh | bash
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"
nvm install 16.13.2
nvm use 16.13.2

Then install ...

npm install chokidar usb-detection
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libudev-dev

Raspberry Pi misc setup

Nvim

sudo apt update
sudo apt install neovim curl
curl -fLo ~/.local/share/nvim/site/autoload/plug.vim --create-dirs \
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim
mkdir -p ~/.config/nvim
nano ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

init.vm:

" Specify a directory for plugins
call plug#begin('~/.local/share/nvim/plugged')

" Add plugins here
Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox' " Gruvbox theme
Plug 'junegunn/fzf', { 'do': { -> fzf#install() } } " Fuzzy finder
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim' " FZF Vim integration
Plug 'tpope/vim-sensible' " Basic sensible settings

Plug 'neoclide/coc.nvim', {'branch': 'release'}
Plug 'preservim/nerdtree'
Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline'
Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline-themes'
Plug 'sheerun/vim-polyglot'
Plug 'sbdchd/neoformat'

" Initialize plugin system
call plug#end()

let g:neoformat_enabled_javascript = ['prettier']

" Enable Gruvbox theme
syntax enable
set background=dark
colorscheme gruvbox

" Basic settings
set number " Show line numbers
set relativenumber " Show relative line numbers
set tabstop=4 " Number of spaces that a <Tab> in the file counts for
set shiftwidth=4 " Number of spaces to use for each step of (auto)indent
set expandtab " Use spaces instead of tabs
set smartindent " Smart auto-indenting
set clipboard=unnamedplus " Use the system clipboard
set mouse=a " Enable mouse support

" Key binding to toggle NERDTree
map <C-n> :Ntree<CR>

prismspecs/open_weather-ags