A Solar Powered Raspberry Pi + RTL-SDR NOAA Weather Satellite Receiver
Over on YouTube user Fuzz has uploaded a video showing his solar powered NOAA weather satellite receiver.
The system is based on a Raspberry Pi connected to an RTL-SDR.com dongle. The front-end input of the RTL-SDR dongle consists of an LNA and FM reject filter, and this is all connected up to a QFH antenna in his front yard. The electronics are completely solar powered, with the solar system consisting of solar panel, solar controller and four 12v batteries used for energy storage. A 12V to 5V step down converter is used to power the Raspberry Pi, with the 12V LNA being powered directly by the batteries. The system is able to be accessed remotely via the Raspberry Pi’s WiFi connection.
Over on his Facebook page Fuzz has uploaded some additional photos, and some of the images he’s receiving.
Any chance that we could get a RPi disk image for this system as I would love to set up something similar? I have tried building my own RPi system using instructions found on Instructables but not had a great deal of success. Any pointers on how to build the RPi software?
Not clear to me, is receiving (tracking sat, tuning sdr, saving IQ) and decoding all automated on the PI? Would be interested in seeing the workflow automated so it just dumps JPG’s to some folder throughout the day.
The FM bandstop filter should be placed first and then LNA to avoid overmodulations and intermodulations, and will have less noise. Ant -> Filter -> LNA -> SDR.
+1
Maybe. If the LNA isn’t being overloaded then you can get more SNR with the filter placed after the LNA.
This is often a contentious issue and there is no single “right” answer in my experience.
My optimized Chebyschev 7-th order FM band-stop from Greece has almost no effect outside of it’s design band stop region.
However, the weak signaller in me tells me the first thing a signal should see is a low noise amplifier !
Probably best to investigate using a spectrum analyzer / SDR tool to look for modulation/overload products and optimize from there.
Watch for damp and this project build is pretty nifty.
Wonder what the neighbors think of the giant egg beater antenna !!!
Yep it definitely depends on what you’re doing, the quality of your LNA and filters and the local RF environment. If the LNA never overloads then there’s no need to put the filter first, maybe you just need to prevent the RTL-SDR from overloading then by putting the filter in the middle. If the LNA does overload, then put the filter first.
Neat Build OP 🙂
Hi mod.
What I don’t get: Why are you posting links to closed FB pages? That makes no sense for ppl that don’t use this gnikcuf FB.
Thank you.
+1
Probably because that’s where the project’s creator chose to post the material. The admin here has no control over that.
I can see it even if not logged in. What’s the problem?
Plus FB is the place where “HE” chooses to post his images and information, plus you don’t have to be logged in to see this stuff
It’s just where he posted his photos, I won’t clone all his photos on the blog. But his album looks like it’s fully public, so I don’t think you even need a FB account to view the photos.