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Got the more mobile setup working today with the re-purposed DirecTV slimline dish with the linear LNB bolted to it! Pulling similar numbers that I saw with the larger circular 90 cm dish, mounted on a tripod stand. As I almost lost the larger dish to the heavy winds we had blow through last night and overnight, I'm switching to this more stable DirecTV slimline dish...as it didn't move a inch during the heavy wind we got during that same time period. The larger 90 cm dish is way easier to tune, but catches more wind and has a tendency to suffer more from dish movement, resulting in signal attenuation.

Picture of DirecTV slimline dish setup:

Metrics seen with the blockstream satellite receiver actively downloading blocks:

Overcast and cloudy skies while downloading blocks:

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Starting to notice what might be some possible performance issues with the Galaxy 18 transponder for BlockStream transmissions from Galaxy 18, at least to my receiving location. Even with a computer reboot of my Ubuntu desktop running BlockStream Receiver and switching out the SDR between the 3 different ones, I get consistent low signal reception and cannot get a signal lock. At the same time, the satellite meter is showing the same strength and quality measurements (50% and 55%) as when I did have a solid connection, downloading blockstream frames/blocks. Then after X period of time, it starts working again with no changes to the satellite receiving dish or additional tuning required.
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Purchased and received 2 additional USB SDRs, as I'm having issues with my RTL-SDR and maintaining the download connection from Galaxy 18 over time. I will lose the connection over what seems to be an arbitrary amount of time. Can be a few hours, or after 12 hours...suspecting from what I can glean searching online, that this may be related to issues with RTL-SDR.

Just received the following, to see if they can hold the connection over the entire runtime of the BlockStream Satellite Receiver:

Nooelec NESDR Smart HF

Nooelec NESDR SMArTee XTR

 

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Some analysis of Run/Attempt #1:
 
Run was started on Saturday, 4/18 at 15:27:04
Run ended on Sunday, 4/19 at 16:47:51
 
Lost the signal from Galaxy 18 about 11 times before finally losing the signal for good. Each time the blockstream receiver was able to acquire the signal on its own within about 10 seconds or so. Signal SNR received started out at 5.4 dB but dropped to an average of about 4.7 dB for the majority of the approximately 22 hours that the blockstream receiver was running before it lost its signal all together. I'm assuming this is due to wind and rain, due to a storm that blew through during that time.
 
 
Only acquired 1.18 GB of the blockchain at about 13.7 kB/sec.
 
Started Run #2, but added some low tech stability to the satellite dish, to see if I can get the dish to stop moving in the wind and to keep the signal lock more during this next run.
 
Some pics of the modified setup (chair added):
 
 
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