WXSat proof of concept

[Analoguesat]

Last weekend I made a very simple wxsat antenna - 4 bits of wood found in the shed, two 53cm lengths of wire and two crocodile clips.

This is the antenna - please note the superb mount Ive bodged for it



Late last night I finally got an old laptop set up with sdr# and recognising the tv dongle.

This afternoon just after I got home from work Ive had a pass off NOAA 15 and received a signal off it!



So having proved the setup is working now I have to get an image decoded. This could be interesting......

 

[pride21]

Hi Analoguesat snap just got it set up about an hour ago, to decode the signal i used WXtoImg and SDR to connect them both i used virtual cable,took me some time to sort that out.

 

[Archive-8]

Just found you can run it on a Pi Raspberry Pi NOAA Weather Satellite Receiver

Still nice catch @Analoguesat and @pride21

 

[Analoguesat]

Experiments halted - Ive snagged the cable and snapped the pin out of the pigtail where it goes into the dongle . Buggrit!

 

[Archive-8]

@Analoguesat what cable did you use to make the aerial with please.

As I fancy a go at this, just need to find something suitable.

 

[Analoguesat]

@Chris1979 it was Just some old 2 core electrical cable that had been in one of the junk boxes. The croc clips were just for rapid disassembly during testing, they arent really required. Once Ive got things set up better I'll build a decent antenna.

There are various antennas recommended, turnstiles, quadrifilar helixes, and others. This straight cable antenna is a recent development, but its only going to work with relatively close passes when the signal strength is ok. Im not using an amp for testing, but one will be required eventually.

 

[Terryl]

I saw this thread and thought...Gee...I wounder if my FT-847 can pick this stuff up..

So I hooked up the receiver to the PC, downloaded WXtoImg, set it up and waited fro a NOAA sat to come along, guess what...It worked.

Now I have something to play with when it's raining, I have to play around with the setup as it looks to be a bit on the noisy side, but it worked.
A bit on the grainy side but it worked, I may have to play around with the DSP filters on the 847, will have to play around.

I may have to make up a different antenna for this, I may try out Analogs design as I just used the GP-9 VHF/UHF vertical.

Thanks guys, this may be fun.

 

[Archive-8]

I saw this thread and thought...Gee...I wounder if my FT-847 can pick this stuff up..

So I hooked up the receiver to the PC, downloaded WXtoImg, set it up and waited fro a NOAA sat to come along, guess what...It worked.
View attachment 115436
Now I have something to play with when it's raining, I have to play around with the setup as it looks to be a bit on the noisy side, but it worked.
A bit on the grainy side but it worked, I may have to play around with the DSP filters on the 847, will have to play around.

I may have to make up a different antenna for this, I may try out Analogs design as I just used the GP-9 VHF/UHF vertical.

Thanks guys, this may be fun.

What aerial are you using?

I really have to get this going.

Nice catch

 

[Terryl]

Using a ham antenna, it's called a GP-9 made by Comet, it's for the VHF/UHF ham bands but worked, it's vertically polarized but picked up the satellite just fine as it went over.

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-gp-9

The satellite (GOES 19, or NOAA 19) passed directly overhead, I should look for one that's off to one side or the other.

I will look into making up the antenna that Analoguesat put together, it's closer to the correct frequency and horizontally polarized.

I think the problem I may of had as to why it's so fuzzy is that the Yaesu FT-847 has a selectable band DSP audio processor in it, I will play around and see whats best for these birds.

 

[Analoguesat]

Nice catch.

I shall try to decode the signal I recorded on Wednesday evening over the weekend. I realised today I may need to do some work on it before running it through WXtoimg.

 

[Analoguesat]

Oh a tip I discovered the other evening and forgot to note down - If you want to see if the antenna is working with sdr sharp so you dont waste time when the wxsat bird is due just try the FM broadcast band - I could get all the local radio stations even with that scaffy homemade antenna sitting on the bench with absolutely no problem.

 

[Terryl]

I going to spend a few days to try and fudge together a half or full wave right hand circular polarized antenna for this, it may work a bit better.
These satellites use RHCP transmissions so the correct antenna polarization may help.

Or maybe dig through he junk bin and see if I still have that 2 meter horizontal dipole, that may work a bit better then the horizontal one.

 

[Analoguesat]

According to the NOAA site NOAA-19 will be the last satellite to transmit these apt images so if anyone wants to experiment with this sort of thing you have a limited window of opportunity.

Once 15 18 & 19 fail thats it - game over

 

[Analoguesat]

@Terryl If you want to try a simple QFH antenna have a look here

A QFH antenna for the weather satellite band

 

[Terryl]

Ahhh...Looks just like what I have done up down in the barn, just looking for an SO-239 connector to make it nice.

Using #12 copper for the radials so it will be a tad bit different.

I have found an old ciscone antenna that covers 50 to 1200 MHz, I may try that as the SO-239 is hiding quite nicely for now. (if I find all it's parts that is)

 

[Archive-8]

using a raspberry pi and maplins meter stick, I guess I have got something not quite right, still



its from noaa 15/18

 

[Terryl]

You need a better antenna, you got some noise bits (snowy dots on the 2dn photo display) and the outlines and thats it.

Still looking for that pesky SO-239 connector, and haven't tried the Discone yet.

 

[Archive-8]

You need a better antenna, you got some noise bits (snowy dots on the 2dn photo display) and the outlines and thats it.

Still looking for that pesky SO-239 connector, and haven't tried the Discone yet.

the meter stick was robbed from my acars setup (temp) a proper aerial will be the next thing.

its supposed to be fully automated, fingers crossed it worked at 00:01 each night it will predict the times of the passing satellites and start the recording.

I had a slight issue with some missing lib files, i had to install sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libfontconfig1 libxrender1 libx11-6 libglib2.0-0 libxft2 libfreetype6 libc6 zlib1g libpng12-0.

 

[Terryl]

What site's are you all using to track these sat's, I use this one.

http://www.n2yo.com/?s=33591

 

[Terryl]

It looks like NOAA 15 will be coming over the UK in about 20 to 30 min.