Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An open-source 240-antenna array to bounce signals off the Moon

moonrf.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–72 of 72 posts

Re: An open-source 240-antenna array to bounce signals off the Moon

#71

Post by thomashabets2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #46
thomashabets2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the "country restrictions" are about ITAR, not the destination country regulation. When the page says "uh… do not use this to build a phased array radar… even though you could. And if you do, then in no way were we involved. Just don't", this is extremely likely to be about ITAR.

> License: Amateur Radio (Technician+) to operate, country restrictions apply. This implies it's about operating a radio transmitter. Iran will absolutely frown on that right now, as they've frowned on Starlink. Their internet shutoff indicates "empowering the public to connect across the world" is not really what they want.

Leaving Iran and DPRK aside, the frequency range, power levels, and everything else depends of course on the operating country.

> Amateur Radio (Technician+) to operate

This is not even true. You can operate within the ISM band without a license, with ISM band limits. So this is what I mean; listing "country restrictions" (not "local restrictions") doesn't make any sense in this context. Everything is always subject to local laws always. Obviously. And that's not even mentioning that a large reason for having this device is receive-only, which definitely doesn't require a license in the US.

~5.8GHz is an ISM band world wide.

Yes, transmitting at "amateur radio power" or within amateur radio bands but outside ISM requires something.

But "country restrictions apply" doesn't make sense if it means that. That'd be like selling condoms and referring to vatican banning them (I don't know if they do), or some countries banning gay sex, so country restriction applies if you use it for gay sex.

Re: An open-source 240-antenna array to bounce signals off the Moon

#72

Post by minetest2048 »

mrtnmcc wrote: post #70
minetest2048 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unfortunately the FPGA verilog source code isn't open source.. and I can't see any RF block diagram in the website Some more questions because the website isn't clear: - does the FPGA handle digital beamforming in the FPGA fabric? or it controls RF phase shifters for analog beamforming? - will we have access to FPGA pin constraint file so we can write our own verilog - can I get IQ samples from the antenna elements a…

Yes the FPGA does digital beamforming and there will be published FPGA pin constraint files so you can write your own Verilog. For IQ samples, you can stream a continuous 60 MSPS IQ beam over the Ethernet, but for custom beamforming algorithms, the processing needs to be distributed across the FPGAs (for MoonRF it is a SERDES daisy chain, using the same FFC connectors as the links to the RPi-5). Yes I'll put some new…

Sounds good! Hopefully i can buy one and play around with it
Post reply on HN