Teardown Session 42: Spacewalker LNA
In this session, Crowd Supply's Helen Leigh talks with Zoltan Doczi, a Senior RF Engineer at Decent Labs. Decent Labs are of the creators of Spacewalker LNA 434 MHz, a device that was developed to combat real-world satellite reception difficulties. In urban environments, it’s often difficult to receive PocketSat and CubeSat signals amidst strong DVB-T, TETRA, FM, and LTE signals from densely packed transmitter towers.
Spacewalker LNA was inspired by attempts to pick up signals from the MRC-100 pocket satellite. After many experiments and measurements, a novel low-noise amplifier circuit was devised to help city dwellers cut through the RF chatter.
Big Thanks to this Week's Sponsor: Qorvo! (https://www.qorvo.com )!
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Key Moments
00:25 Crowd Supply news and what's new
02:45 Teardown 2024 updates
03:38 Shout out the the Qorvo Accelerator program
04:40 Introducing Zoltan
06:22 About the Spacewalker LNA and its origins
09:21 Talking to a project in outer space
11:20 LNA + SDR benefits
14:10 Understanding "beam types"
17:54 Antenna theory deep dive
19:44 What data is received and how is it processed?
23:05 The role of filtering, especially in urban environments
24:40 Fake LNA warning!
27:29 A tour of Spacewalker LNA
29:30 Audience Question: What is the sensitivity of the device and the intended cost?
34:40 Spacewalker's built-in electrostatic protection
38:08 Demo time! Long term data recording, spectrum analysis, and more
40:03 How satellites die
46:56 Zoltan's home setup
48:13 Data dive into a sample observation
53:40 Audience Question: What is your opinion of the current state of the open hardware 1P PocketQube satellites?
1:01:40 Upcoming streams, more satellites!
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About Our Guest
Decent Labs are a group interested in researching and applying technologies and governance structures that will make the world more resilient, safe, and inclusive. Learn more: https://decent.org/.
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About Crowd Supply and the Teardown Sessions
Crowd Supply is the crowdfunding platform of choice for engineers, hackers, designers, and idealists. We help them with the funding and support they need to deliver respectful, thoughtfully crafted, open source hardware to their delighted backers. The Teardown Sessions are a series of interviews and hands-on learning sessions with Crowd Supply creators, staff, and lots of special guests.
See what our creators are making: https://www.crowdsupply.com
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Follow us!
Youtube: @crowdsupply ( / @crowd_supply )
Twitter: @crowd_supply ( / crowd_supply )
Instagram: @crowdsupply ( / crowdsupply )
Discord invite: ( / discord )
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Links & Resources
Teardown 2024: https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/...
Decent Labs: https://decent.org
Spacewalker LNA GitHub repo: https://github.com/zodoczi/Spacewalke...
Spacewalker LNA Crowd Supply campaign: https://www.crowdsupply.com/decent-la...
Qorvo home: https://www.qorvo.com/
Qorvo QPL9547 LNA IC: https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...
Qorvo RF Accelerator: https://www.crowdsupply.com/qorvo/rf-...
SatNOGS project: https://satnogs.org
RTL-SDR: https://www.rtl-sdr.com
TinyGS satellite network: https://tinygs.com
Libre Space Foundation at FOSDEM 2024: https://community.libre.space/t/libre...
The MRC-100 satellite: https://gnd.bme.hu/mrc100/index_en.html
Zoltan on X (neé Twitter): @rfsparkling
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