Topic: Blockstream's Bitcoin Satelite WWW w/ OuterNet USB Reciever. (Read 20122 times)

Nice setup OP. Did you see eutelsat-113 (over South America) went kaput. Satellite is dead.

Added below to the main page on this thread, for those of you set for new messages. Anyway, this is the 'toy' selling as pre-order now.

My thanks for Last of the V8's for pointing this out on this thread. I had no 'frigging' idea!

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Revised 9/20/2020 New Unit in Pre-Order with New Links below. Also supposedly the older unit below will also work with patches/upgrades
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Info on units and prices for both Pro and Reg versions below.

Blockstream Satellite Basic Kit: A consumer-grade satellite receiver, ready to connect a Bitcoin node at home. Requires a computer running Linux, e.g. a Raspberry Pi, to process the received broadcasts. Pre-sale: $279 / RRP: $299

Blockstream Satellite Pro Kit: Rack-mountable professional hardware that supports all the features of the Basic Kit, with additional dual-satellite capability for more reliable and faster data transfers, and multicasting (more on this below). Provides Bitcoin data to multiple devices on the same network. Pre-sale: $749 / RRP: $799

Blockstream Satellite Flat Panel Antenna: A flat-panel antenna array with integrated LNB offers a stylish alternative to a satellite TV dish. Users in the Asia-Pacific region should contact support to check compatibility before purchasing. Pre-sale: $179 / RRP: $199

https://blockstream.com/2020/05/04/en-announcing-blockstream-satellite-2/

A review here on the setup and how well it all works. https://blog.bitmex.com/bitcoin-satellite/

as of 9.21.2020

enjoy

Brad

Heh, tempted, but I have not even put up the original Blockstream Thread unit! Too many 'toys' too little time!

Here is some more links in the following message for pictures and prices and such. I also updated the main page for the new unit.

From what I understand from this thread the 'old' unit of 2018 when this thread was made will also be upgraded and useable as well. So that is 'dandy'

My thanks for Last of the V8's for pointing this out on this thread. I had no 'frigging' idea!

Brad

https://blog.bitmex.com/bitcoin-satellite/

Blockstream has a 'spendy' satellite solution.

I assume OuterNet that I highlighted here would still work just fine, as well as any other 'homebrew' versions.

here are the interesting links on such and speed increases

https://blockstream.com/satellite/

https://store.blockstream.com/product-category/satellite_kits/

https://cryptoslate.com/blockstreams-satellite-just-made-downloading-bitcoin-without-the-internet-easier-and-25x-faster/


What the heck, something to play with during the Pandemic and all. It's only money right?

brad

If it works anything like Satellite T.V. the speeds to YOU should be pretty damn fast. The speeds up to the satellite are likely modem speeds at best?

unsure. But from what I 'think' I remember from way back when.

Brad

Let's say one wants to sync the blockchain from scratch. What kind of download speeds are we talking about?

Thanks for reviving my old thread! I still have this setup...I've never put it up..as with many projects no time. I guess when the 'Zombie Apocalypse' happens I'll have to do this!

Anyway, maybe someday. Good to know someone is having fun with such. Let us know how the whole blockchain from space thing for Bitcoin works as well.

Too many projects, too little time.

Brad

This weekend I installed my dish, spent a while failing to point it properly, and tonight finally succeeded getting a signal from the Galaxy 18 satellite feed!  By far the hardest part for me was just getting the thing pointed properly to get my first signal in blocksat-rx-gui.  Some helpful tips:

- I've read it's best to start with the elevation setting as it tends to be the more critical and finicky axis of alignment for such satellites.  I made sure to get the j-mount pole as level as humanly possible so that the elevation gauge on the dish's mount would be of use.  It helped to actually put the dish on the j-mount first, and then level.  I initially tried leveling the mount by itself, but then mounting the dish to that ended up pulled things off-level a tiny bit.  In hindsight, I suppose I could have also set the elevation using my level that has an adjustable angle dial, and computed the dish's proper elevation angle from it's specified offset angle.  The dish mount's built-in gauge worked just fine for me (make sure to use the edge of the metal and not the nut on the bolt as your gauge indicator).

- For setting azimuth (left/right heading of the dish), I initially tried doing a rough alignment with my smartphone's compass, despite knowing it isn't super accurate and is prone to interference from all sorts of things.  Surely a quality old-school compass would be better, though still affected by EM sources and magnetic materials...  I'm a bit of an amateur astronomer, so I realized I could just use the stars and a good star charting app, assuming I had a clear night.  I opened up my SkySafari app and looked for a bright star on or just east my target azimuth meridian.  There wasn't a suitable star I could make out in my light-polluted Chicago skies, so I instead looked for a bright star further to the east of my target azimuth meridian and simply waited for good ol' Earth to rotate into alignment with it (about 30 minutes later).  I then stood directly underneath my dish so that I could sight right down the LNB arm to aim the dish in the star's direction (azimuth-wise only, of course), and voila, my first signal in blocksat-rx-gui.  Obviously if you have a roof-mount or little space below your dish, this technique may be difficult, but mine is mounted about 5 feet up on the side of my house, which made it super easy.

+1 Merit

this is awesome! now Bitcoin is independent from WWW in case you will distribute your local mesh txs via an Internet connectivity at a later time.

https://gotennamesh.com

https://hackernoon.com/building-your-own-bitcoin-satellite-node-6061d3c93e7

seems upgraded with the recent announcement

https://blockstream.com/2019/05/11/gotenna-satellite-api-integration/

I've put up a rough draft of my initial setup at an old disused website that apparently I've been paying to keep the domain name for...for about a decade...

I made about every mistake you can make...so I have some embarrassing but helpful tips on what to do (and not to do): https://www.drgoss.org

For each of my two dishes:

76cm dish $45
MK1 PLL LNB  $8 (note! EU and Asia need different LNBs!)
Coax from dish to inside-- depends on length, mine was free because I scavenged it-- you can get 50ft of RG6 for $15.
SWIM power injector $7
F to SMA connector $2
TCXO R820T2 SDR $24
USB extender cable $4
Figure a couple dollars in misc hardware, bolts, etc.

Then a suitable computer, you can get something used for $0 to $200 or so, or something new for less than $400.

Many of the parts can be found for free or nearly free depending on your scrounging abilities, proximity to hamfests, and willingness to trade time for money.  (e.g. it's very easy to find 45cm dishes for free at least in the US. Coax and injectors can also be found for free or close to it.  The LNB you'll have to buy-- as blockstream's signal requires an unusually stable LNB, but it won't break the bank.).

If you really have no similar hardware and no experience with this sort of thing you might want to double your estimated price, simply because you'll lose parts, find things that don't fit, need tools, etc.  I used a short piece of RG6 coax while aiming the dishes in order to avoid complications from the long cable run while pointing... My dish is mounted to the wall with lag bolts, if you don't have an impact driver (or at least ratchet, socket, and a lot of patience) you'll probably want to get one. To install it up there on the wall I needed a ladder which I obviously already had, etc. My tool chest is as tall as I am, so there is a certain amount of cost that I didn't experience that you might.

WOW the King!

Here is a cost breakdown from a similar setup-

Here is the parts list - https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AHH4EF7QUWTH4SHESSIXHM6H2IHQ/32NTXVS0Y48VI

without the stand it is only 105 usd , and lower if you have coax or an old dish


and here is a second parts list and buildup https://hackernoon.com/building-your-own-bitcoin-satellite-node-6061d3c93e7

Fantastic post and quite didactic. The photos are clear and it is easy to understand how to build this project. You have put some costs, but do you have any estimates of how much it cost for everything?

And is there any estimate of how many people have built and are keeping this project active in their homes or businesses?

Well now that btc/crypto and home/data hall mining for the little guy is dead...maybe...I'll have some time to get this up as well...very, very nice setup..will copy some of it

cool post

brad

I thought I'd share some pictures of my receiver setup.

I have two dishes, one to pickup the blockstream single on G18, and another to pickup the signal on Eu113-- most of the US are covered by both of these signals.

Once some upgrades are made to the sending side use of both dishes will allow half the delay when sending blocks (and, obviously, more reliability against obstructions or equipment failures)-- pretty handy in places that happen to be covered by multiple signals. At the moment I'm just using one at a time, though both work.

The dishes I'm using are 76cm Winegard DS2076.  I paid $45 each for them on Ebay.  If I hadn't found such a good deal on this I probably would have used 90cm geosat pros (which are about $100).  For my location the 76cm is adequate, though I've had some outages during bad weather-- heavy rain attenuates the 12GHz signal a LOT.

I understand blockstream is going to be making some signal changes that should improve reliablity, and also some modem changes that will make it easier to get pointing really peaked out.  The current tools give a really noisy SNR measurement which swings over a few dB in the space of seconds even when you aren't changing anything, this makes it really hard to dial in the pointing and get a really perfect alignment.   E.g. my polarization could be off by as much as 30deg and I wouldn't have any idea, because the changes just weren't visible on the background noise.

For feed horns and downconversion I'm using MK1 PLL LNBs on the dishes which were an astonishingly low price of $8 on amazon.  These are the appropriate devices for the americas signals, and they seem surprisingly good. Europe and Asia need different LNBs.

The dishes are connected back to my equipment room with a ~250 foot coax run using some fairly low loss cable that I reclaimed from a CATV temporary lateral that was abandoned on the under the grass after the put a permanent install up on the polls.  The reported SNR looks the same both with and without the cable, so I guess it's not too long.  YMMV esp with less heavy duty coax or with LNBs that have less gain or lower voltage power inserters: I kinda expected these to be too long.

Then I'm using Direct TV "swim" power inserters. These cost $7.   They are a little bulky but the only real complaint I have is that they're 120VAC only-- all my computer gear is 240v for efficiency reasons, so these being an odd ball out is a bit of a pain. But I am probably the only US user who is weird enough for this to be a problem.

Finally, I'm using the recommended $24 nesdr USB RTL dongles as the SDRs.  Not much to say about these things. They're inexpensive and they work.  I contemplated using a nicer SDR (I have a couple to choose from...) but I figure my bug reports are more useful if I use common hardware.  I use USB extension cables to hook the SDRs up to the host (otherwise the SDR is a fragile wart on the back of the computer).

These feed an older 3.4GHz quad core E3-1230 1u box that runs the fibre-enabled Bitcoind.

I've encountered a couple bugs which blockstream has been fixing as I've found 'em. In particular the pull-req to store out of order blocks is essential.  I've had a couple internet outages where the sat signals have successfully kept my Bitcoinds receiving blocks. Success!

The biggest issue that I had with the install is that multiple times I used a laptop for initial pointing that was too slow. And the blockstream modem software really doesn't give you a usable warning if the computer is too slow. When the computer is too slow. It _looks_ like its working, but that there is no signal.   My small laptop that was easy to haul up onto a ladder was just too slow, and even when I switched to a faster one it was too slow while not plugged into AC power (so it was fine on the ground but when unplugged to drag it up onto the ladder it started returning junk).  I wasted _hours_ due to this one problem.  Since pointing is a little tricky, esp if you haven't done it a bunch of times it isn't surprising if it takes you a bit, which just makes it take longer to realize that the lack of success is due to a slow system.

On with the pictures. First, a wider show to show how I have the dishes placed:




I decided to wall mount the dishes:  Compared to ground mounting them above where anyone would walk in front of them and block the signal or knock them out of alignment.  Compared to roof mounting they're somewhat protected from the wind, I didn't have to worry about causing any leaks, and they're less conspicuous.

Here is a close-up of the dishes:



Like most small dishes these are offset fed, so they point much higher than they look like (about 24 degrees, in the case of these dishes).

You can see the dishes are aimed 'cross eyed',  there is a power poll that gets a little close to the line of sight of the signal, so I wanted the dish that was pointed more towards the poll to be the dish that was further away from it.  I could have located the dishes elsewhere but this location has the advantage of being invisible inside the buildings unless you push your face right up to the glass.

And my equipment room with the power inserters and SDRs... and a bunch of unrelated stuff. (I have the wall opened up at the moment due to unrelated work) To the right is the top of the rack that has the computer in it that handles the signal.



In the pictures I also have a pair of 1268 MHz-center 35MHz wide bandpass filters between the power inserters and the SDR. They're not required, though I find they do improve SNR by about a half dB or so (the inexpensive SDRs don't have very selective front ends).  Mostly I have them just to avoid any issues with high power transmitters that I have getting picked up by the long coax run.

Beyond my issue with the slow computers making me falsely believe my aiming was wrong, the setup was really easy. (Though, I do have a non-trivial amount of experience with radio, SDRs, and Bitcoin (obviously)).

I've not gotten around to getting mine up (bad OP) due to time..and I keep forgetting about this project with other projects not done.

I think it cost me $99 bucks for the kit. FYI.

anyway, maybe someday, I'll get my butt in gear...

brad

this Satelite thing is amazing!