Get Started

Intro

Welcome to the SatNOGS community! Here you can find all the info needed to get you started.

Who are you?

• Radio Amateur: Most members of SatNOGS community are radio amateur operators licensed in may different countries around the world.
• Space enthusiast: You love space and space data? SatNOGS is just the project for you! There are many learning opportunities around our community, and you can start easily with accessible projects, while you gradually become a space expert!
• Satellite operator: You have your own satellite project? That's awesome! Many SatNOGS ground stations are built by satellite operators to gain extended access on their satellite telemetry and use the stations for telecommand and control.

STEP 1: Join the community

First things first: make sure to get connected with fellow SatNOG-ers!

• Sign up for our newsletter.
• Join the community forums and announce yourself.
• Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
• Join our live discussions over at IRC #satnogs on the Freenode network, or via the Matrix #satnogs room.

STEP 2: Choose and deploy your ground station

Learn about the different options for ground stations and software, and create your station.

STEP 3: Create an account on the Stage Environment

SatNOGS runs a stage environment at https://network-dev.satnogs.org. It's used to test new versions of the [Intro#Network SatNOGS network], but it's also the right place for you to test your ground station. Sign up for an account. Once you've verified your email address, log in and create a ground station entry and an API key. (Save the API key -- you'll need that when you install the SatNOGS client.

(And if you notice any bugs along the way -- please let us know!)

STEP 4: Test your setup

In this step, you will install the SatNOGS client (if you haven't already), and ensure that it can connect to the Stage environment. Once that's done, you can schedule your first observation.

STEP 5: Request a production account

Post your successful observations to the community. When you're confident that you're ready, post a request to be added to the production network.

STEP +: Consider wider contributions

There are many ways to contribute to the SatNOGS project:

• Contributing to the software that runs SatNOGS
• Improving the documentation for the project
• Improving the SatNOGS database