Over on his YouTube channel ‘saveitforparts’ has uploaded a new video showing how he was able to download the Bitcoin blockchain via the Blockstream Satellite network. The Blockstream satellite network allows people in remote communities without an internet connection to receive the entire Bitcoin blockchain via satellite. With the blockchain Bitcoin users can confirm if a payment to them has been made.
After several failed attempts, he was finally able to receive and decode the signal using a fold-out satellite dish with an LNB and an RTL-SDR Blog V4. He also attempts to use the encrypted messaging feature on the blockstream satellites. However, while the message appears to have been received, he was unable to actually view the message due to an error. He writes:
A while back I heard about the Blockstream Satellite network, which claims to offer real-time streaming of the Bitcoin blockchain to anyone with a satellite dish. While I still don’t understand cryptocurrency, I thought the satellite part of this sounded interesting!
It took a while to locate the correct satellite (Galaxy 18 in North America), and to get the software working, but eventually I was able to start downloading the blockchain file. What to do with it next, I have no idea!
I also tried sending messages through the satellite, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to decode them on the receiving end. I gave up on this since I didn’t want to spam everyone on the global network!
You can find out more about the Blockstream Satellite system on their website: https://blockstream.com/satellite/
And you can find instructions on using the system here:https://blockstream.github.io/satellite/doc/sdr.html
I used https://www.dishpointer.com/ to help align my antenna.
I also used https://www.lyngsat.com/ and https://www.satbeams.com/ to identify which satellites I was detecting.
