Satellite Transceiver Breakout - Swarm M138 - Hookup Guide

This Tutorial is Retired!

This tutorial has been retired; the satellite service for this product will be terminated at the end of December 2024.

Contributors:

PaulZC

Once you've assembled the breakout and connected the antennas, connecting via USB is as simple as plugging in a USB cable!

You can power the board directly from USB-C or USB 3 ports, but not older USB 2.0 ports. Please see Current Draw below for more details.

Once USB is connected, the LEDs on the modem will indicate its status:

Green:
- During the bootup sequence, the green LED will be on solid for 3 seconds.
- During normal operation after bootup and before shutdown, the green LED will blink 100ms every 5 seconds while the Modem is powered on. This is a “heartbeat” indication that the Modem is working as expected.
Red:
- After power is applied until the Modem begins booting, the red LED will be on solid for 10 seconds.
- After bootup and while the Modem is acquiring a GPS fix, the red LED will flash quickly until a valid GPS fix has been found. Then the red LED will shut off during normal operation.
- After waking up from sleep, and before a fresh GPS fix has been acquired, there will be a single red LED flash every 5 seconds (following the green LED flash) until a fresh GPS fix has been found. Then the red LED will again shut off during normal operation.
- During the shutdown sequence, the red LED will be on solid until 3.3V power is removed from the board.
Blue:
- The blue LED will be on solid when the Modem is actively receiving from a Swarm satellite.