Noaa 19 Weather Satellite

[Harry Dalek]

First go at the meteor digital satellite pretty embarrassing results if it wasn't so hard to do i wouldn't put it up couldn't even see the full resolution results .
the 3 images are the red green and blue...
Well can only improve from here

[Harry Dalek]

Better decode with Amigos program its far from the full sized image getting there.

[Steve Anderson]

Yes, bit by bit, little by little.

Much the same here. Gradually getting the logging part together, the small stripboard part. And the receiver proper now housed in a waterproof container (an old cosmetics thingy), not mine you know... To prove it was waterproof I had it submerged in a bucket of water to a depth of around 30cm for a week. Not a drop seeped in. Now I need to get a strong magnet to put in the lid (now the base) so it sticks to the car body. Bad luck if the car body is aluminium or fibreglass! Mine isn't, good old '90s steel.

There's still quite a bit of wiring to do on the board as well as banging out the software for writing/reading the SD card and interfacing to the 20x4 character display.

Steve A.

[Harry Dalek]

Hi Steve
I like how you have got the receiver it water tight !
So you will be able to see the gps working on a little display or is it a SD card recorder or both Steve ?

Well on my eyes on the sky i got the program to display the full image 1568 2432 image tonight would be larger depends on how long you can receive the satellite ,it was a big problem working out a correct recording and decode this is not fax so many factors can stuff up the image or no image at all ...i will see next about the colour next and have to make a better antenna mine is to directional still so loss of signal as the satellite pass angles change .
The image .....top is the bottom of Australia might just see an out line down is the southern ocean

[Steve Anderson]

The unit will record the data stream that comes out of the receiver onto the SD card and decode that data for immediate display on a 4x20 character display. I have done a trial layout of how the data will be presented on the display, this could change...

Line 1, Latitude in degrees and decimal minutes, local time.
Line 2, Longitude in degrees and decimal minutes, satellites used in navigation fix (S12), fix type (FV3) valid and 3D.
Line 3, Altitude in metres (four digits eventually), distance since last reset in km (a trip-meter), local date.
Line 4. Outside air temperature in Celcius, true track in degrees, current speed in kph.

Steve A.

[Harry Dalek]

The unit will record the data stream that comes out of the receiver onto the SD card and decode that data for immediate display on a 4x20 character display. I have done a trial layout of how the data will be presented on the display, this could change...

Line 1, Latitude in degrees and decimal minutes, local time.
Line 2, Longitude in degrees and decimal minutes, satellites used in navigation fix (S12), fix type (FV3) valid and 3D.
Line 3, Altitude in metres (four digits eventually), distance since last reset in km (a trip-meter), local date.
Line 4. Outside air temperature in Celcius, true track in degrees, current speed in kph.

Steve A.

i know iphone apps and so on can do this sort of stuff i think but to be able to make it from scratch is pretty neat ...need to keep people like you safe if theres an apocalypse ! or we would have a good thousand years of learning reinventing !

[Steve Anderson]

The trouble with phones is the display shuts off after a while, or if you can configure it not to, bang goes your battery life. Though plugging it in to the car supply might negate that problem - via a USB car adapter/charger.

A large part of this design will also be used for an updated frequency and time reference, firstly for the workbench, secondly for house network. The existing reference is based on a Rockwell OEM receiver. Which does the job except on two counts. First the Rockwell time reference is +/-40ns, this version is +/-10ns. Secondly, the Rockwell (including its active antenna) guzzles 250mA of power at 5V. This version under 20mA and no active antenna required. Thirdly (just remembered this) the Rockwell is a 12-channel device (12 satellites at one time max), the Skylab is a 22 channel receiver. Not that you'll ever see more than 14 at one time above the horizon anyway - at the moment. (Not counting SBAS/QZSS etc).

The power thing is that the house network is battery-backed and currently the Rockwell is the biggest power user of them all.

I have made a couple of small changes to the display layout already...

Steve A.

[Harry Dalek]

Well Steve i bet your gadgets power supply would out last my samsung phone i think even iphones are worse ,,nice for them to do so many things but they do eat the power.

Today i have clawed my way back into the digital age and got 3 out of the 4 passes of Meteor n2 first colour shots from the satellite for me and the one night ir image is a bit bland a lot of cloud cover and rain that night i was shocked i got a signal at at all ...here are the 3 images in low res to post up otherwise its a download....also the first 2 images that is not a line because of signal loss the satellite resets every 6 minutes for a reason i don't know yet...

[Harry Dalek]

Got a long IR image last night...very hard to make out what is where i am going to have to check with the satellite tracking program start and end the day passes are nice tried and edge pass at 7.55am this morning got all of New Zealand ..pretty much got the settings that work now and just really can work on a better north pass via trying some out antenna designs .

[Steve Anderson]

Well done Harry, as British Rail used to say. "We're getting there." Sadly most times they had no clue as to where they were going. Good thing they never ran an airline.

But that's not the case here. Good images that can only get better with time...

Steve A.

[Harry Dalek]

Well done Harry, as British Rail used to say. "We're getting there." Sadly most times they had no clue as to where they were going. Good thing they never ran an airline.

But that's not the case here. Good images that can only get better with time...

Steve A.

Well its been a learning curve last few weeks ,even today the last image i now know the IR images are upside down and also needed another program to process it.
Like every thing its easy once you know
Even did a bit of digital dx over New Zealand.

[Harry Dalek]

Getting a bit better at Meteor m n2 Still a little brake up of signal at times .

[Harry Dalek]

Heres my first SDR Noaa 19 image no scanner this time.

[Steve Anderson]

Just one word Harry - impressive!

Steve A.

[Harry Dalek]

Just one word Harry - impressive!

Steve A.

OH thanks Steve its for some reason harder to do Noaa analog satellites on a Software defined radio than via scanner its a bit fussy on the settings taken me ages trial and error with all the settings its very fussy with bandwidth catch 22 better picture closer to the correct band width but you loose sync very easy narrow bandwidth loss of quality better signal better sync lock .

On Meteor N2 digital this my first true 3 colour image ,i am not sure why but most of the time they just use red and green and a IR channel but at times on day passes you get 3 colour channels as well only happened once for me as the picture posted here and some of steps to decode ,there are infact 3 ways to do it first record and S file which you can decode right away the other cleaner way is record a baseband wav file convert it to 130khz then the 2 programs you need to decode it ...the third way does it all at once and displays the picture which i have not tried yet .

I made a new right hand circular polarized Quadrifilar helicoidal antenna from an old 60s vhf antenna and wipper snipper head and some pvc pipe works great you get the satellite signal at 2 to3 deg's which is amazing ,