TinyGS - Open Source Global Satellite Network

I’ve found some new software projects utilizing T-Beam LoRa boards that I want to try out (posts coming soon). I’ve got a handful of these boards lying around and they are quite fun to experiment with. Over the years, I’ve played around with Meshtastic and several other packages including TinyGS.

The TinyGS project is a global network of groundstations that listen for LoRa packets from satellites, weather balloons, and other flying objects. I have a 433MHz T-Beam board hooked up to a DIY 433mHz antenna using some welding rods and an SMA connector and I’ve had this station tucked away by a back room window for the last two years. The location is not ideal, but even being indoors, I’ve picked up over 16000 packets since it has been running.

I’m sure it could perform much better if I made a proper antenna and mounted it outdoors. I may do that at some point in the future.

If you have a spare T-Beam lying around, I’d encourage you to give TinyGS a try. It is an interesting project and it is always cool to pick up signals from space.