DreamCatcher

Setting up the OS

There are two OSs that you can use on the DreamCatcher.

Armbian

Standard ARM Linux OS based on Debian, Highly supported but does NOT have build in support for Outernet. This OS requires lots of tweaking to up and going...

Armbian for DreamCatcher, V5.27

Skylark

Os based on Busybox is read only and has the full Outernet system ready to go. This is the one to use if you want to play with outernet with no tweaking

Skylark, for the Passive Antenna, Released May 14, 2017

Skylark, for the Active Antenna, Released June 22, 2017

Burning the image to an SD Card

A microSD greater than 4GB in size is required.

Extract the image

It is compressed using "gzip.", many common Unzipping tools on your chosen OS can un-compress these.

Linux / OSx

gunzip [filename.gz]

Windows

use 7Zip

Write the image to the SD card

the best way to burn the SD card is by using etcher here---> https://etcher.io/

Startup the DreamCatcher with Armbian Distro

1) Insert SD card into Dreamcatcher board slot marked "SD0_OS," next to LED array.

2) insert the USB Wifi Dongle, or other USB network device if you have it.

3) Optionally - connect the USB Cable to your PC with a terminal application open.

4) connect power to a USB port, or alternatively the USB cable to PC can provide power

after the bootup process you should see a "Dreamcatcher Login:" prompt

Default Username

root

Default Password

1234

Configure Wifi

To connect to wifi network, use command line:

nmcli d wifi connect your_ssid password your_password

or using the text UI:

nmtui

to check assigned ip use:

/sbin/ifconfig

SSID/password, once configured, will be stored, and should be applied automatically at next boot.

Install The RTL-SDR Libraires and Utilities

To install librtlsdr and sdr utilities like rtl_fm etc, use:

apt update; apt install rtl-sdr

(you will need to have already connected to network for this to work)

Shutting Down

Unlike Skylark, the root filesystem here is modified and is writeable, so it is important you shut this down properly:

sudo poweroff

BOARD LEDS

The LEDs from the SMA connector down to Sd card slot, in order:

USB HUB

Enable = green

This is Turned on when the usb hub is on.

Default at boot: ON.

To turn off: echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/usbhuben/brightness (this will also turn off the usb hub: no rtlsdr, no wifi!)

Packet indicator

flashes when Outernet packets are received.

Default at boot: OFF

Unused under armbian

Lock indicator

On when there is a signal lock.

Default at boot: OFF

Unused under Armbian.

d. SNR1, SNR2, SNR3, SNR4: SNR indicators, unused under Armbian. Default off.

e. USR1: sdcard activity indicator. equivalent of the HDD activity light on laptops/desktops

f. USR2: heartbeat: flashes when kernel is booted and working normally. The flash pattern is:

long off, N short flashes, long off, repeat.

N = 2 * loadavg.

g. Power: White LED, on when board is powered.

11. The default armbian image enables the "LNA bypass" RF input port, to allow usage as a normal, unfiltered RTLSDR. to switch to the Outernet LNA (L Band) RF input:

echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/rfswitch1/brightness echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/rfswitch2/brightness

ONDD Setup

FTP to a DreamCatcher, copy the following files off of the system... be SURE to FORCE binary transfer.

/usr/sbin/ondd (md5:207723be33f4da57bd64a6549e11e95d)

/usr/sbin/ontimeout (md5:5092f17f0152ca352799290999ba7a6c)

Create an empty conf file

/etc/ondd/ondd.conf

Create a place to place downloads

/home/downloads (or wherever)

Create a place for download cache

/home/download_cache

Run ondd with the following command:

/usr/sbin/ondd -d --pid_file /var/run/ondd.pid --cfg-gile [empty cfg file you created] -c [location for download cache] -o [location for completed downloads] -D /var/run/ondd.data --sdr-timeout-handler /usr/sbin/ontimeout

Command Help

[Skylark][outernet@outernet:/usr/sbin]$ /usr/sbin/ondd -h

00:11:21.099 [main] Unable to load config: /etc/ondd.conf (null)

Usage: ondd

--cfg-file CONFIG_FILE override default config file location

--pid-file PID_FILE override default pid file location

--ctrl-sock SOCK_FILE override default control socket path used for ipc

--status-sock SOCK_FILE override default status report socket path - status e

--cert-file CERT_FILE override default ceritificate file location

-D SOCK_FILE data socket path to which the demodulator sends raw s

--sdr-timeout-handler script to execute if no data arrives through the date

-o PATH path to output directory where downloaded files are d

-c PATH path to cache directory where partially downloaded fd

-O PATH if specified, files which path does not begin with td

-b N set the maximum number of download completion eventsy

-d start ondd in daemon mode

-i print to stdout the current signal strength and snr,d

-V enable verbose mode

-v display ondd version info

-h display this helptext