Blitzortung – Real time lightning map | Hacker News Reader

Blitzortung – Real time lightning map

map.blitzortung.org

13 pointsgrbrn3 comments

Seems like a really cool an interesting project, but their hardware requirements (you have to use their hardware) and the lack of hardware availability (no public price listed and the hardware is ordered and shipped ad-hoc by some students) are seriously negative aspects of this kind of grass roots project.

I was expecting an adsb-exchange type data sharing network type situation but instead I found an academic project with a lot of public participation that appears to have very little visibility into the overall current project health and status. This has the classic feeling of a project where loosing one key person totally ends the project.

None of this is to denigrate the work, it’s an awesome project and even the real-time map data is an amazing tool. But I just have my concerns about the health and longevity of the project based on what I could read in the forums.

I got this email in June of 2021 when my name came up on the waitlist, unfortunately I was not able to participate at that time.

This is for the "System Blue" kit:

  You should try to build your own loop antennas. If you do not have the possibillity to place a coaxial antenna, frame antenna, or loop antenna in your garden you can also use our feritte rod antennas. If you order ferrite rod antennas, please order two. The antennas are mached each other. Two ferrite rod antennas are sufficient. A third ferrite rod antenna is mainly used for experiments or for improving the all-around reception characteristic (3 x 60 degrees). 


  The LTC1569CS8-7 filter ICs are also mainly used for experiments. You should always try it first without filter ICs. Be aware that you will need one filter IC per channel. Since the digital filter ICs are very expensive in Germany, we no longer offer these filter ICs. You can order the them yourself in China, for example at aliexpress.com. The digital filters allow to filter out a noise signal with a frequency of 80 kHz or higher. Such interfering signals often exist near long-wave transmitters.

Summary of purchase options:

- PCB populated with SMD components (additional components must be soldered on by the purchaser): 180,00 €

- Ferrite Rod Antennas (20cm) 20,00 €

- Aluminum housing 64,00 €

Four order options, all include PCB:

- 0 antennas, 0 housing: 180,00 €

- 2 antennas, 0 housing: 220,00 €

- 0 antennas, 1 housing: 244,00 €

- 2 antennas, 1 housing: 284,00 €

Thanks for posting this. It helps to get some idea for anyone else curious like I was.

While its nice to know approximate pricing (since this apparently varies depending on their current production costs from what I can tell) ... the other project health issues can't really be solved from the outside. This feels like a shoestring budget academic project turned public participation project scraping by trying to avoid costing anyone anything. They are overly protective of their hardware and software compared to other collaborative data gathering projects like SatNOGS, ADSB-Exchange, etc... and they talk about how processing the data is so resource expensive that they can't afford to onboard too many new people.

I don't like it, but it just sounds like a project in such a fragile state that it could fold any day. I wish I could do something about it, but even if I had unlimited time and money, crucially it looks like efforts to change this would be rejected by the current project stewardship/leaders.

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