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SatNOGS is awesome. I'd like to use it for experimenting with bouncing radio off the moon and maybe us a few Amateur Radio satellite repeaters.

I really wish someone would sell a kit or preassembled tracker for us lazy people.

Can you just use a Yeasu G-5500 rotor?
You could, but that's a $750 rotator to spin some serious antenna weight.

What'd be more ideal is if someone ran a kitting business for the open source satnogs rotator. https://wiki.satnogs.org/SatNOGS_Rotator_v3

Buying in bulk, one could probably get the price down to $200 and still keep a profit, but the volume would be so low that it's probably not worth the time and effort.

I've thought about doing this, ran some math, and that's the conclusion I came to.

I suspect so, but it's pretty heavy machinery and really made for a big mast. I've shied away from it so far because it's a big investment, and it's a bit unclear how precise it is, how exactly to connnect it to a computer and so on.

My gut feel is that SatNOGS would be easier end-to-end (and probably easier to repair and upgrade if necessary).

But yes, I should consider the Yaesu.

SatNogs is fantastic for satellites operating in the amateur band. A global coordinated ground station network and community with loads of expertise. They have on at least a couple occasions (including a cubesat mission I was involved in) found satellites (ie tracked and identified from beacons) after deployment before the satellite operator. Hoping to add a station to the network sometime in the next 12 months. The grafana dashboard they set up is super cool also.