Field units
Ground stations you control remotely
Orbitalink field units are the physical ground-station nodes registered to your tenant. Each unit reports live state, health, azimuth, elevation, and last-seen timestamp — observable from the operator application without being on-site.
Register a field unitField unit photo — add /public/images/field-unit.jpg
Live telemetry per station
What each field unit reports
Connection state
Online / Offline / Stale — with a 15-second heartbeat watchdog and automatic disconnect detection.
Rotor position
Current and target azimuth and elevation, tracking state, and Arduino connection status.
RF metrics
RSSI, SNR, Doppler shift, current frequency, SDR recording flag, and demodulator state.
Satellite identity
Tracked satellite name, NORAD ID, altitude, and the active TLE source.
Pass schedule
Upcoming passes with AOS, LOS, max elevation, frequency, and duration — pushed in real time.
System health
Uptime, capture stats, forwarding state, event log, and decoder results — all per station.
Deployment
Register and connect in minutes
A field unit is registered via the operator dashboard (ADMIN role required). Once registered it connects to the Socket.IO gateway using its station ID and tenant ID. The gateway adds it to the active registry immediately.
Register the unit
An ADMIN provides the field unit ID, location, and hardware details via the station management page.
Connect to the gateway
The field unit connects over Socket.IO with its stationId and tenantId. The gateway records it in the active-stations registry.
Begin telemetry
The unit starts emitting telemetry, tracking, and status events. Operators subscribe and receive live streams immediately.
Monitor remotely
Health, position, RF metrics, and pass schedule are visible in the operator application from any browser, any location.
Hardware
Bring your own hardware or ours
Orbitalink field units are designed around common SDR and antenna-rotator combinations. Feature flags in the operator application gate controls that require specific hardware — so operators only see what their station physically supports.
Ready to connect your station?
Contact the Orbitalink team to discuss field unit registration, hardware compatibility, or a site deployment.