Initial Setup¶

First steps¶

If the board is built up you should do a first quick test on your desk:

1. Attach a 5 volt USB power supply to the controller board.
   You should hear some beeps and some of the LEDs should light up.
   See here if no LED or just the red power LED lights up.

2. Connect the controller to your home network via ethernet cable.
   The green LED on the network connector should be on and the yellow one should flicker.
   Don't mix up the RJ45 ethernet and amplifier port. ;-)

3. Try to access the web interface via IP address (DHCP) or just try http://blitzortung.
   Just look around and familiarize yourself the web interface.
   There are several ways to get the IP address.

4. Connect the GPS antenna
   After several minutes the blue LED should start flashing every second.
   Be patient. The GPS antenna should have visual contact to the sky.

5. Connect the preamplifiers
   On the connected preamplifiers the red LEDs should be on
   

6. Touch the input contacts on the preamplifiers with a finger to generate a signal pulse.
   A signal should be displayed on the web interface at the "Signals" page.
   Raise gains until something happens.

7. Set up an account (see below).
   A message should appear for automatic account creation.
   No message means there's no internet connection.

IP address¶

By default the IP address will be assigned by DHCP and the hostname is blitzortung. Check getting the IP address in case you can not find the IP address.

Install antennas and wiring¶

The system should be able to run 24/7 over the whole year. Try to install everything in a way so that it will last for a long time. Protect it against water and UV radiation. Especially RJ45 cables can suffer from UV radiation very fast.

As the antennas should be installed far away from electric disturbers, they are often placed outside high above the ground and above surrounding object. Keep in mind that this also raises the chance of being struck by direct lightning.

GPS antenna¶

In general, the GPS will receive more satellites when having good view in direction of the equator. That means, if you have only the possibility to place your GPS in-house, you should choose a place on the south side of the building (or north side on the southern hemisphere). This fact is more important, the higher your latitude is.

Setting up an account with Blitzortung.org¶

On the top of the web page of the internal firmware web server you find a link to request an account for Blitzortung.org. This link is only visible, if the station is not assigned to a user ID. Follow the instructions in the email you will receive. The account is associated with your email address.

After registration enter your username or email and your password on the login page of Blitzortung.org ⧉. After a successful login you are on the "Project Area -> User data" page. Here you can complete the information about you and your stations.

If your station is not assigned or you want to assign a new station, enter the device ID of your station in the line "Assign a new station: (Processor ID)". You find the device ID of your station on the web page of the station under processor information.

Check the community¶

With your new account you should also have access to our internal forums. You will find a lot of useful additional information there and you can ask other users for help. Access will be enabled when you go to the forum with Further Info -> Forum ⧉. If that doesn't work and you don't see any internal forums then just ask for help there.