Satdump software & wxsat reception

[hairybadger]

Turn the lna gain up to maximum. My settings are this - Im still on 1.1.4 on my live system as I couldnt get 1.2 to install correctly when I tried last weekend

View attachment 156021

Set your sample rate to something like 2.048Msps & click start To make the fft visible. You may need to adjust the fft max & min too get a sensible display. Where you need to set it to will depend on your local noise floor.

ALso make sure you have the right dongle selected - mine works on Generic RTL2832u OEM (although its a few years old now)

I have the only dongle available selected. It has the right name. Fiddling with the max/min isn't helping because the line is constantly on 0. I don't think the device is feeding anything at all to my computer. I'll have another fiddle tomorrow. Thanks again!

 

[Analoguesat]

I have the only dongle available selected. It has the right name. Fiddling with the max/min isn't helping because the line is constantly on 0. I don't think the device is feeding anything at all to my computer. I'll have another fiddle tomorrow. Thanks again!

You are welcome HB. Satdump is frustrating to get going - it took me a week or so playing with it in the evenings to get it to do anything! However once you start to figure out how it works you realise its an incredibly powerful bit of software which can decode multiple modes across dozens of satellites.

I did a google for satdump forum a few days ago - our beloved site came up as the top hit So all questions will help others who are stuck & need a bit of help even though they can only read the thread (Hey lurking lads n lasses why dont you join us & help expand the knowledge base!)

 

[Terryl]

I have the only dongle available selected. It has the right name. Fiddling with the max/min isn't helping because the line is constantly on 0. I don't think the device is feeding anything at all to my computer. I'll have another fiddle tomorrow. Thanks again!

Did you try using the dongle program "ZIDAG" and see what it comes up with as far as the dongle USB drivers??

My Nooelec dongle (the same as yours) comes up as "Generic RTL2832U OEM #0" in the photo below.

 

[hairybadger]

FFS I just spent an hour fiddling with different driver types. I played with the satdump server but it kept crashing. Restarted several times.... Went back to the client.

I hadn't pressed start in satdump .

Et voilà . Egypt and environs. Quality rubbish because, I assume, I have things like SR badly set.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Analoguesat]

The speckled effect is because its not seen any signal on that pass- its just putting noise over the underlying map it uses. However well done - it took me a week to get that far

It doesnt matter how bad the image is - you have the software doing something

NOAA19 has a high pass over western Europe at 10UTC this morning which is probably your best bet

 

[hairybadger]

Autoroute radio is on 107.7. I'm wondering if I can capture that - not that I want to, as such, just as an experiment.

 

[hairybadger]

FFS I just spent an hour fiddling with different driver types. I played with the satdump server but it kept crashing. Restarted several times.... Went back to the client.

I hadn't pressed start in satdump .

Et voilà . Egypt and environs. Quality rubbish because, I assume, I have things like SR badly set.

Thanks for all the help!

I'm using these freqs.

WXSAT FREQUENCIES

137.9125 MHz for NOAA-18 ?

 

[hairybadger]

I'm using these freqs.

WXSAT FREQUENCIES

137.9125 MHz for NOAA-18 ?

Now I'm confused. If I look at

WMO OSCAR | Satellite: NOAA-15

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - 15 | 1st flight unit of NOAA 5th generation. Main mission: operational meteorology. Significant contribution to space weather.

space.oscar.wmo.int

for example, I can see low resolution service on freqs.

APT	S-E	137.5 MHz	38 kHz	RHCP	A	1.7 kHz	Reduced resolution images
APT	S-E	137.62 MHz	38 kHz	RHCP	A	1.7 kHz	Reduced resolution images
APT	S-E	137.1 MHz	38 kHz	RHCP	A	1.7 kHz	Reduced resolution images
APT	S-E	137.9125 MHz	38 kHz	RHCP	A	1.7 kHz	Reduced resolution images

I always go for 137.1? What about the HRPT services? Are they out of the reach of a simple SDR?

 

[ArloG]

Without a bunch of words, check out this guy. Simple? Not so much. Frequencies are way higher and a tracking antenna or some crafty manual tracking is needed.

 

[hairybadger]

Without a bunch of words, check out this guy. Simple? Not so much. Frequencies are way higher and a tracking antenna or some crafty manual tracking is needed.

Thanks. I think I'll leave that for another day . Walk before I can run...

 

[cirio70]

the importance of the right connectors:
when i ordered the rg58 cable i forgot to also buy the connectors.... so, while waiting, the cables were simply ‘spliced’
now that i have received the SMA connector package and everything is connected correctly, the signal, when i have visibility, is completely noise-free!!

(NOAA-18 - 01:00 PM)

 

[pontiend]

Not getting much from M2-3 lately.Getting a good pass from M2-4 though. EL44.64 on this one a bit low,I was not expecting much .I got a surprisingly good image though.16.11 pm

 

[Terryl]

These satellites are what I can receive on my home brew antenna.



Now as to the higher frequency's (around 1.7 GHz) on these satellites, a standard antenna like the one we use for the 137 MHz signals will not be sensitive enough nor cut to the right frequency, you would need an antenna setup for that band.

There are some available but they are quite small, so you would have to track the satellite as it passes over, there are antenna rotors that can be controlled by software but they are quite expensive.

 

[ArloG]

Terryl is correct. A better and much easier project would be to investigate geostationary satellites.
Less headaches and there are kits that include as little or as much needed.
If building your own home brew ground station, the helical antenna and an old satellite dish would be enough to snag a signal.
A helical antenna inherently has wide bandwidth. So you have a little wiggle room in the design and is more forgiving.
With less gain than a properly constructed patch antenna.
The signals will be RHCP (from memory). And remembering that when reflected from a dish, an LHCP design must be remembered.
Signals will be relatively weak. I've built patch antennas for Inmarsat, aero l-band decoding. The signal literally screams in.
GOES so far has been very weak. I need a bigger dish. Or just bite the bullet and buy a prebuilt one.
You can't skimp on cable and connectors with this stuff.

 

[Terryl]

Some of you may be within the GOES satellite foot print, if so then there is an antenna made just for this purpose, you can find it on amazon.

Amazon.com

It's a bit expensive but it works, however it's connections are not weather proof and some would at times need to use an LNA, (Low Noise Amp) in this case a suitable enclosure would be needed as the LNA should be mounted as close to the antenna as possible, some of the SDR dongles have what is called a "Bias-Tee" setting*, this sends a DC voltage (+5 volts) down the coax to an attached LNA to power it, this way the LNA can be remotely connected.

*this function should be shut off if your not using an attached piece of equipment that needs this voltage as some antennas are a direct DC short.

The GOES satellites are in a fixed geosynchronous orbit just like the satellites that supply programming, however they are mostly located over the North American Continent, there are others but I do not know if you can view the data from them.

Here is a good site for this.

Weather satellites

Weather satellites

en.allmetsat.com

 

[Terryl]

Nice pass on NOAA-15 this morning.



A little bit of speckling on the top and bottom, but I cant do anything about that, trees and Mountains in the way.

 

[Analoguesat]

I'm using these freqs.

WXSAT FREQUENCIES

137.9125 MHz for NOAA-18 ?

The main APT frequencies are :

NOAA15 137.62
NOAA18 137.9125
NOAA19 137.1

There are other frequencies in use - these 3 transmit something called DBS around 137.7 BUT to be blunt its really not very interesting & is much lower power than the APT stuff so needs a nice high pass.

 

[Analoguesat]

Autoroute radio is on 107.7. I'm wondering if I can capture that - not that I want to, as such, just as an experiment.

Finding a local radio service is a very good way to find if the system is working - simply because the signal is there all the time & you arent waiting for a fleeting pass that only occurs evey 90 minutes!

 

[hairybadger]

The main APT frequencies are :

NOAA15 137.62
NOAA18 137.9125
NOAA19 137.1

There are other frequencies in use - these 3 transmit something called DBS around 137.7 BUT to be blunt its really not very interesting & is much lower power than the APT stuff so needs a nice high pass.

Thanks again. In the NOAA APT demodulator window, what exactly do I want to see? A line that's as clean as possible?

 

[Analoguesat]

A pulsing pattern in the demod window. With a good signal the pulse is very obvious with a frequency of about 1 pulse every half second. If you can get the audio working the sound is a distinct "ding ding" sound. On a good pass the pulses are well defined: +




The second pic is about as tight as the bands get