NOOA 17 at 10.00 utc

-
I have had a passion for tracking and receiving NOOA weather Satellites for a few years and have tried a few different antenna's along the way with some reasonable images being received. I have had the home brew IOIo beam up for the last two months and have been pleasantly surprised with its performance. The best way to ensure a clear image is achieved by having an almost inaudible sound level from the output of your radio to the sound card. In other words make sure the sound-in to your computer is set very low from the radio.

The software I have been running since 2004 is Radio Com 5.2 which has now been superseded by version 6.0. Radio Com 5.2 seems to work exceptionally well still, and I have had a lot of Radio Hams around the world getting in touch with me since they have watched the Weather Satellite videos I did for this site and Youtube.

A lot of other Hams told me that they were using WXtoIMG decoding software which allowed the user to play around with the received image and also add colour. The main concern using the WXtoIMG software was that the image quality was not so great compared to the images I had received using Radio Com. However it does work and can be downloaded free if you fancy trying it?

Radio Com 5.2 and 6.0 allows image manipulation and also provides a pallet of colours, which can be edited in once the image has been received and saved.

The only down side to Radio Com software is paying for it! The software gives you full rig control of two radios at the same time and multi mode decoding for just about everything from CW, PSK, SSTV to RTTY it has a built in digital filter as well as spectrum analyser. The actual screen is very pleasant to the eye and simple to use, however the program will not run without the Radio Com Dongle which is a serial type fitting to your computer.(Preventing any coping/pirating of the program).

Here is the Pass and course of NOOA 17 at 10.00 utc

Here is this mornings image from NOOA 17 showing North Europe to North Africa received on 137.620 FM.

I will be listening out for more passes whilst awaiting the solar cycle to provide some good propagation here in North England. So far a slow start!

73

Comments

mvandewettering said…
Nifty! I've been doing similar stuff for a while, using my Arrow antenna and recording satellite passes, and then using my own code to convert them into pictures. In the last week, I managed to get the sync detection code more or less working, and now I can produce pretty nice looking images. After cleaning up a few remaining bits of ugliness, I intend to make the code available under an open source license.

http://brainwagon.org/2008/11/07/in-my-copious-spare-time/

Mark KF6KYI
5:48 pm
MØYKS Simon said…
Hi there Mark, thanks for commenting. I am very impressed with your code and the image I saw at your site. (will be adding you to my links)

I enjoy this other side of radio sometimes a little too much h.i

I have been pleasently surprised with the IOIo beam as well as the Arrow antenna. Would love to put the Arrow up on the rotator but suffer from heavy wind, so will have to stick with my heavey duty IOIo and keep the Arrow for portable use.

Tnx agn and good luck with your research. Hope to hear more about it soon.

Regards de Simon
7:02 pm
Phaze58 said…
Iv'e got radiocom v6 and as soon as I get things up and running here @ home you can be sure I will be looking for some NOAA sats to track.
congrats Simon.
9:04 pm
MØYKS Simon said…
Nice one Phil. I hope to hear more about your progress and we will have to share our images etc. Look forward to playing some radio together soon.

73 and I'll listen out for you on 145.500
10:22 pm
Krishna Lekshmi said…
Nice blog! Interesting post!!

Regards,
SBL Photoshop Image manipulation
6:07 am
MØYKS Simon said…
Thanks very much, you're welcome!
4:06 pm
Kusuma Nastiti Ardiati(KNA) said…
your blog is good. my blog www.displaykayu.blogspot.com and www.batikklewer.com good luck
1:39 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New DX Contact 0n 12 Meters

-
Image
Today I managed a nice QSO with Tom ZD7X who is located at St. Helena which is quite a distance away from my location. I managed to work Tom ZD7X with a 5/9 report operating my FT-767GX with my home brew 20m delta loop assisted with the MFJ-969 to tune the antenna with 50 watts on 12 meters. 12M is rarely open and I have only had a few QSOs on this band so I guess the new Cycle has begun at last! Good DX de 2E0HTS 73
Read more

Full Size Delta Loop for 20M

-
Image
I came across a simple delta loop design courtesy of dxzone found on the net some time ago and have been planning to give it a go for a while. This weekend I had a couple of hours spare, so I decided to give it a go using some 2mm multi strand wire cable, a dipole centre and a mixture of 75 ohm and 50 ohm coaxial cable. The delta loop is supposed to be resonant on 20 meters but I found it to be a little high so at present I am tuning the Loop with my mfj-969 which copes extremely well. The resonant frequency is 13.2 MHz at the moment so the next chance I get, I shall shorten the overall length making sure that each of the three sides are still equal in length, and hopefully adjusting the antenna for maximum performance ATU free for 14.2 MHz. I believe the miscalculation in the resonant length is probably down to the fact that my wire is covered in the plastic sleeving from the manufacturer which always effects the swr as I have noticed in past experiments with dipoles you always get sl
Read more

Homebrew 40/80 Trap Dipole Design

-
Image
This Antenna design was one that I used about 4 years ago, it worked exceptionally well on 80m and 40m. The size of the antenna makes a Half wave length on 80 meters, and with the traps a half wave on 40m with a SWR (standing wave ratio) of 1:1-1.5 across both bands. It worked well also on 20m with the use of an A.T.U (antenna tuning unit). I made my version of this antenna using 3mm multi strand copper cable which I left covered by the PVC insulation. The traps can either be home brewed using some 40mm diameter plastic drain pipe and winding wire around the pipe approximately 10 turns, then connected in line after the 10 metre lengths. Or the alternative is to purchase some commercially made 7.1 MHz traps, and fit them in line the same way. The antenna can be fed with 50 ohm coax with a home brew balan or again a commercially purchased balan. The wire lengths of the dipole are 2x 10 metres and 2x 6.7 metres as shown on the diagram above. This antenna can be mounted quite low to the gr
Read more