Questions and answers
Short answers to the things people ask most often. The full story is in the guide.
What do I need to listen to QO-100?
A satellite dish from about 60 cm, an LNB for 10 GHz and an SDR behind it. For the control page, the gateway runs on an SDR board with Linux, for example a PlutoSDR clone. The supported devices are listed in the guide.
What does it cost?
The page and the gateway are free. For receive hardware, a used dish and an LNB come to roughly 50 to 100 euros, plus the SDR. To transmit you'll also need a feed and a power amplifier for 13 cm.
Which licence class do I need to transmit?
You can transmit if your licence class includes the 13 cm band. The power you're allowed is in the band plan. Anyone may listen.
Can I operate the station remotely?
Yes, as long as it's your own station at your own location and you stick to the AMSAT-DL rules: level below the beacon, follow the band plan. Enabling a station for other callsigns to transmit isn't supported. Others can only listen.
How much data does the control page use?
Spectrum, waterfall and audio together need about 230 kbit/s with the default settings, and the gateway keeps them below 290 kbit/s. You can see the current rate in the settings under Diagnostics. With fewer frames per second it drops considerably.
Why can't I hear anything?
Switch the audio on first: browsers only play sound after a click. Then check whether the beacon is locked (the beacon marker in the bar) and whether you're tuned to a busy segment. If the waterfall only shows noise, it's usually down to alignment, LNB power or the LO setting.
What does "beacon locked" mean?
The gateway looks for the middle beacon at 10489.750 MHz and measures how far off your LNB is. Once it's found, it takes the offset out. The frequency display is then accurate to about 10 Hz, even when the LNB drifts as it warms up.
Can the page transmit on its own?
No. It only transmits when you've enabled the transmitter at the gateway, you're signed in and you press the transmit key. The gateway blocks the beacons and band edges, limits transmit time and switches off if the connection drops or the page goes into the background.
Who can see my station?
Only you, until you share it. The connection runs encrypted via afu.tools, and you don't need to open anything on your router. Audio and waterfall are not stored.
What is stored?
In the browser, the page remembers your display settings and a measured LNB offset. On afu.tools there's your account and the pairing with your station. A logbook only exists if you create one yourself.
Does it work on a phone too?
Yes. On a phone everything is stacked, with a tuning bar at the bottom. Swiping across the waterfall tunes, two fingers zoom.
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