The Outernet website is a maze—not very well done in my opinion. But there is a Do-it-yourself way. Go to
https://www.outernet.is/en/receive
Under “Connect to Outernet,” see the link, “receiver.”
http://outernet-project.github.io/orx-install/
Then follow either of the OS links, for example,...
Arch Linux ARM
https://github.com/Outernet-Project/orx-install/blob/master/archarm/README.mkd
See the list of components.
“Satellite dish (60cm or larger)
LNB (must support Ku band)
USB satellite tuner (see below for devices know to work)
Raspberry Pi (model B or B+ recommended)
...”
[See ellipsis above. There’s more.]
I ran
LNB Ku band
as keywords, and saw an EBay hit pretty quickly. Cheap antennas for dishes. Real cheap. What’s Ku band? Range...?
11.7 to 12.75 GHz
Wow!
10.750 GHz LO (for setup)
That’s quite a frequency range from an old timey radio perspective! [Been looking at the challenge of maybe building a stronger HF antenna for a mobile application...maybe a loop roof rack or something.]
I’ll dig around, when time allows, to see if it can be done with a laptop instead of a Crackberry...er, Rasperry. Maybe a package, or an emulator, virtual machine or something.
Yes, I read about the availability for the ARM or PI computers, but I am not interested in purchasing either of them simply to play with an untested and not-readily-available satellite feed of dubious value. If they can port it over to a standard ‘nix or *BSD setup, then I might play with it.
Also, Software Defined Radios (or Receivers, depending upon the descriptor) are still not simple devices to get working. Currently, I can throw together receivers and transceivers fairly easily, and even convert something for satellite reception. An SDR, however, requires more than simply soldering together some components and tuning the circuits so I am not placing that in the simple-to-build category.
Think I’ll wait until someone simply puts together a group and uses the same general concept but with a simple sat uplink and downlink so people can use already-available satellite radios to receive the same concept. Even Amazon sells simple satellite receivers and antenna setups at this point. Don’t really see the need for all the rest of the equipment that OneWeb is pushing, all things considered.