Quadrifilar helix antenna 7 mhz for noaa weather satellites may 16th, 2010 i had always wanted to try and receive a signal from a satellite using my scanner. With something like the nooelec sdr dongle, a computer, and a qhf antenna you can predict your own. How to build a qfh quadrifilar helix antenna to download. Many translated example sentences containing meteorology satellite germanenglish dictionary and search engine for german. Apt weather satellite amplifier 7 mhz lna and filter. This paper focuses on hardware and software implementation to receive and decode the. Weather satellites software for about 25 euros you can receive a weather satellite image like this one. In situations where the kx 7 may be too big or striking, e.
There are two types of weather satellite from which it is possible to receive images. Satellite antennas are also designed to receive best from signals coming from the sky. This is a build i did on a raspberry pi to receive noaa weather satellite signals and process them into images on a raspberry pi 3 model b. Many vhf scanning receivers can receive fm in the 7 mhz satellite band. Simply connect a 7 8mhz fm communications receiver, scanner, or weather satellite receiver to your soundcard and get stunning colour images directly from weather satellites. Apt weather satellite amplifier and filter, model lnau07648, is a 7 mhz lna and filter combined into a single device. It was designed with software defined receivers sdrs in mind, which are notorious for performing poorly where there is a high density of signals in close proximity. This project was completed for my senior design project along with two other members.
My first weather satellite images with a 7 mhz turnstile. After some research i found that i may actually be able to pick up the noaa weather satellites as they pass overhead. Get your weather images straight from the satellite hackaday. I want to get into apt viewing on the 6 7 mhz range due to my intrist in the hf weather satellite frequencies, however, many pictures i decode on hf are charts, or other non satellite picture, but i did recieve a satellite picture at 8. Their relatively close height above the earths surface allows them to deliver highresolution images. How to pull images from satellites in orbit noaa 15,18,19 and. Hardware a small sample of some of the receivers and antennas best suited to weather satellite reception.
Quadrifilars are used on these satellites on frequencies in the 6 7 mhz band, at 121. The signals were fed to a sdr sharp generic software of rtlsdr and were decoded to receive. The image below was captured today from noaa19 at 7. Diy 7 mhz wx sat vdipole antenna this is a short version, the final of the article describing how to build the weather satellite 7 mhz vdipole antenna. In addition, an antenna for the 7 mhz range had to be designed. Noaa satellites transmit live weather fax pictures that can be copied with the sdr radios at the w2mmd site. Significant contribution to atmospheric chemistry and space weather. In 1986, there was an article by greg roberts in jesaug entitled satellite transmitting status that listed over 40 satellites that were reportedly transmitting in the vhf band of 6 to 8 mhz. He also had an airspy he wasnt using and so it became the sdr radio we were going to use for this.
Around 800 km 500 miles above your head, weather satellites circle earth, continuously sending back what they see. The noaa apt weather satellites broadcast their signal at about 7 mhz, and their signals are also right hand circularly polarized rhcp, which means you will need a right hand circularly polarized antenna to properly receive the signals. I had for some time being receiving apt from noaa and meteor weather satellites and had noticed various other signals emitters showing up at other. I want to build one in a couple of weeks and thinking about how to deal with corrosion and extreme weather conditions.
Receiving images from passing weather satellites noaa and. Realtime observation of weather systems in your area, promotes understanding meteorological phenomenon such as lows and highs in colour. Although expensive dedicated interfaces with accompanying software are available from commercial suppliers of weather satellite hardware, most enthusiasts these days decode the apt data from the noaa satellites using their personal computer and its associated soundcard. Quadrifilar helix antenna 7 mhz for noaa weather satellites. They transmit in the 7 mhz range that seems to be receivable by the 2 meter beam. Apt signals come directly from weather satellites in polar orbit noaa 12 and 15 on 6. Many multimode decoding software also support this mode of transmission. You can receive noaa weather satellites in the 7 mhz range, also use wxtoimg software that lets you decode the signal. How to download live images from government weather satellites.
Please read weather satellites antennas for a suitable antenna and construction tips. Apt weather satellite reception decoding and display software overview. I should start out by saying that there are many ways to go about doing this. Every few hours a noaa weather satellite passes over your head, continuously transmitting pictures in visible light, infrared, and shortwave infrared. Together with an rtlsdr and 7 mhz satellite antenna, these programs are used to receive, track, demodulate and decode meteor m.
Currently, there are three active polarorbiting satellites, the most recent of which, noaa19, was launched in 2009. Each wire is 14 of the length of a 7mhz wave, while the pair together is 12 a wavelength. Setting up software is just as important as a good antenna, so this guide details software settings. A somewhat specialized antenna is required to receive the right hand polarized transmissions from noaa weather satellites, but with a few bits of. Over on his blog adam 9a4qv seller of various rtlsdr related goods including the lna4all has just made a post detailing a build of a high performance super simple noaa meteor m2 weather satellite antenna. The data itself is encoded using frequency modulation fm, the same method that fm stations use to transmit audio. All about software defined radio sdr all about software defined radio sdr. These satellites transmit images at 7 mhz, which is relatively close to both fm radio transmissions 90 mhz to 110 mhz and 2meter amateur radio transmissions 144 mhz. For vhf apt weather satellites those operating at about 7 mhz the ideal bandwidth is in the 3545 khz range.
In my beginner naivity, i hoped, that the antenna will work good also for 7. Select this device in the console receive dsp pane and. Software such as wxtoimg for decoding the apt signal. Actually i want to ask hows the antenna doing today, still works.
Wxtoimg will work with just about any receiver capable of reception in the 7 8mhz fm band but for best results requires a 30khz 50khz bandwidth. This home weather satellite receiver is a system of an fm receiver tunable to noaa weather satellite frequencies 7 to 8 mhz interfaced with a pc. How to make an effective qfh quadrifilar helix antenna for receiving weather satellites in the 7 mhz band, using pvc pipe and coaxial cable. The kx 7 provides best omnidirectional reception results for polar orbiting satellites in the 7 mhz band.
I use the same wrap center and braid around when i got no inclination to solder, aka almost always, does the job. I had always wanted to try and receive a signal from a satellite using my scanner. The only other item youll need is an antenna for receiving the circularly polarised signals. The audio from the receiver is fed into the line input of the computer sound card, where it is saved as an audio file usually in wav format and then decoded into an image using computer software.
The noaa weather satellites are some of the easiest satellites to receive. A right hand circularly polarized antenna tuned to 7 mhz. Receiving noaa weather satellites with an sdr and a. Apt weather satellite amplifier and filter description. Cost efficient design approach for receiving the noaa weather. To receive signals from orbiting weather satellites, you need a receiver and antenna capable of receiving frequency modulation fm in the 7 mhz satellite band. Rendezvous with noaa polarorbiting weather satellites. Building a simple and inexpensive satellite ground station. Satfax was designed for the occasional wefax monitor who wishes to use an icom r700, r7100, or aor 3000a also other receiverscanner that receive either 1691 mhz or the 7 mhz range and soundcard in his computer with wefax software to receive polar orbiting and geostationary satellites. Complete text article will be published soon in the pdf format that will include background and a bit of theory how i. Falsecolor visible light image from noaa 19 on february 2, 2017 on 7.
These satellites are operated at approximately 7 mhz. Xw2d has a cw beacon transmitting with 50 mw and a 100 mw, 20 khz wide linear transponder. Below you can see a screenshot of my sdr application receiving the downlink of xw2d microsatellite. Equipment used for amateur weather satellite reception, antenna, receiver, software. The wxtoimg software supports computer control of several models of. Apt signals come directly from weather satellites in polar orbit noaa 12 and 15 on.
Use a tuning program to configure the rtlsdr hardware to receive audio at 7 mhz. We decided to build an automated noaa weather satellite image receiver using a modern sdr device. Building a simple and inexpensive satellite ground station part 1 by bob and jann koepke when we think of ground stations for satellites, large antenna arrays and dishes immediately come to mind, along with a lot of expensive electronics. Pictures from weather satellites with a usb tv tuner.
Pdf image data acquisition for noaa 18 and noaa 19 weather. This is large enough to accommodate the modulation on the satellites carrier plus frequency variation due to doppler shift as the satellite passes overhead. Receiving images from passing weather satellites noaa and meteor m2. Software used was wxtoimg and gpredict for pass prediction and sdr sharp for reception. Then life came in continue reading my first weather satellite images with a 7 mhz turnstile antenna.
We used an sdr software defined radio called a hackrf to do the work of interpreting the received signals and then decoded them with some. Offset frequency on noaa 18 satellite signal reception, a 7. For polar orbiting weather satellites on 7 mhz you also need of an if filter 30 to 50 khz wide, neither narrowest or wider. Install a virtual audio cable vac, either vbaudio or virtual audio cable.
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