Category: Satellite

Information about Receiving the GOES-13 Weather Satellite (Europe Coverage with 1.8m Dish)

For some time now many weather satellite enthusiasts have enjoyed the ability to relatively easily receive live high resolution images directly from the GOES-16, GOES-17 and GK-2A geostationary satellites (tutorial here). However, while much of the world can see at least one of these satellites, European's have been left out.

What may be of some interest to Europeans is that the older GOES-13 (aka EWS-G1) satellite was repositioned in February 2020, and it can now be received in Europe (as well as Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Russia and West Australia) until at least 2024 when it will be replaced.

The important catch however is that GOES-13 is not broadcasting the same easy to receive LRIT/HRIT signals that the other satellites use. The signal is still in the L-Band at 1685.7 MHz, however it is called "GVAR" and it is much weaker and uses 5 MHz of bandwidth. For GOES 16/17 and GK-2A a 1m WiFi grid dish, LNA and RTL-SDR was sufficient, but for GOES-13 you'll need a much larger 1.8m dish, and a wider band SDR like an Airspy. The big dish requirement significantly increases the reception challenge.

We also note that the decoder is being developed by @aang254 and u/Xerbot and it is not yet publicly released. However, they do intend to release it soon. Update:

Over on his blog Carl Reinemann has been collecting some useful information about GOES-13 reception. Over on Reddit u/derekcz has also created a post with some useful information. We've also been talking to @ZSztanga in Poland who has been testing this satellite out, he wrote:

My hardware is: 180cm prime focus dish, with a custom cantenna (120mm diameter). I'm using the SAWBIRD GOES LNA. I will be switching to the + version, because the setup is still lacking a few db SNR. The SDR is the one I use for HRPT: the airspy mini

I found that the USB connection on the airspy generates a lot of noise, so I removed the USB cable, by moving the airspy to the laptop. I use 2m of CNT-400 coax and it works much better now. I get about 2 db SNR more. Thought you might find it interesting.

@ZSztanga's GOES-13 Reception Setup, with 1.8m dish.

We note that there is some interesting differences with GOES-13 images. Since the image is less processed, it is higher resolution (a full resolution image can be found on this Reddit post), as well as not cropped, meaning that the Earth's atmosphere is visible. Please also follow @ZSztang on Twitter for more images.

Happysat Reviews the QO-100 Bullseye LNB

Thank you to Happysat for reviewing the QO-100 Bullseye LNB which we have available in our store, eBay and Aliexpress. The Bullseye LNB is an ultra stable TCXO (temperature compensated oscillator) based LNB which makes it very good at receiving the narrowband signals on the QO-100 amateur geostationary satellite.

Standard LNBs that are sometimes used for QO-100 are not designed for narrowband signals and hence do not have temperature compensated oscillator which can result in the signals drifting in frequency significantly as the ambient temperature fluctuates. Happysat also notes that the extra stability seems to have increased signal strength on the more wideband DATV reception as well.

First test's on Es-Hail Narrow SSB transponder compared to my old regular sat-tv LNB clearly is showing more signal stability overall.

It does need some time for both the tuner and LNB to get stable, but that's only a few minutes.

Weather conditions shows less "drifting" of the pll where the old LNB was very sensitive of temperature changes, clouds before the sun did have immediately effect on the signal stability.

Some days with storms reception was impossible on SSB Narrow band.

Winter is coming over here so it gets a lot colder and more storms, but I don't expect any problems with this LNB.

Wideband testing DATV reception also shows a more stable signal although its a wider signal then narrowband, it also did increase the signal, e.g. a signal lock happens much faster.

More information about Happysat's setup and his use of the Bullseye QO-100 LNB can be found on his QO-100 website.

Other reviews of the Bullseye LNB include a YouTube video from TechMinds and F4DAV's in depth review on his website.

The Bullseye LNB for QO-100

New GOES Weather Satellite Bundle from NooElec

NooElec have recently released for sale a GOES geostationary weather satellite reception bundle which includes a parabolic grid dish, feed, GOES LNA and RTL-SDR dongle. The bundle should be usable for the GK-2A satellite, as well as HRIT from polar orbiting satellites, although for HRIT you'll need some way to motorize or hand track the satellites.

Typically to receive GOES a 2.4 GHz WiFi grid dish has been used in the past. While the mismatch between 2.4 GHz and the 1.7 GHz used by GOES doesn't cause too much trouble, the dish provided by NooElec has a feed optimized for the 1.7 GHz which should make receiving the signal easier. The bundle also comes with their SAWbird+ GOES LNA, one of their always ON bias tee E4000 tuner based RTL-SDR dongles and a roll of 10m LMR400 cable.

The bundle is currently available on Amazon USA priced at US$179.95. Canadian customers can also order from Amazon.ca for CDN$259.95. Amazon shipping is free within the USA, however shipping this overseas will cost at least US$100 extra due to the weight + additional import fees. That said, the coverage area of GOES is mostly only for the USA, Canada and South America.

If you're interested in GOES or GK-2A satellite reception we have a tutorial written here.

NooElec GOES DIsh
NooElec GOES Bundle Data

NOAA-APT Decoder Updates: False Color, Pass Prediction and more

In the past we've posted a couple of times about the NOAA-APT decoder software as it is a worthy alternative to the now abandonware software WXtoIMG. However, it lacks certain features which makes WXtoIMG still the go to program for NOAA weather satellite decoding.

As NOAA-APT is open source it has recently seen a few new updates from another contributor, as well as the original author. These changes make it quite a bit more useful, although admittedly not perfect. Hopefully we'll see continued refinement over time. Regardless, this is still a great piece of software which is open source and multi-platform. Martin Bernardi, the original contributor writes:

Although I wasn't planning to continue working in my program, the quarantine happened so I worked on the program a little. Later, a person (Arcadie Z) added more features too, so I created a new version in case you want to add a blog post about it.

Added features since the last blog post:

- Redesigned GUI.
- Satellite prediction and map overlay (but has offsets I can't fix yet).
- False color images
- Histogram equalization (improves the contrast and brightness of images)
- Automatic image rotation depending on pass direction

In the end, the map overlay and false color does not work very well, but it is better than nothing I guess.

The NOAA-APT Decoder GUI

Sanchez Scripting Examples For Post-Processing GOES, GK2A, Himawari, Elektro Satellite Images

Recently we posted about new updates to the Sanchez software. The updates allow users to combine images received from multiple geostationary weather satellites such as GOES 16/17, Himawari-8, GK-2A and Electro. The images can also be reprojected into a flat equirectangular image, and then optionally reprojected back into a disk view at any location on earth. Sanchez's original function is also still there which allows users to add a false color underlay image to grayscale infrared images received from the satellites.

Sanchez is a command line tool, so scripts are required to do anything interesting. Over on his page Carl Reinemann has uploaded a page with a number of Sanchez command line examples available. The page shows examples like how to stitch together multiple images, and how to create a stitched time lapse animation. The YouTube video below shows an example of an animation Carl created with Sanchez and GOES 16 and 17 images stitched together.

GOES 16-17 Composite imagery

And the image below is an example of an image of Himawari 8, GOES 16 and 17 he stitched together with Sanchez.

GOES 16 and 17 composite created by Carl Reinemann via Sanchez

Bullseye TCXO LNB for QO-100 33% Off Sale Ending Soon

On September 15 we began our 33% off stock reduction sale for the Bullseye LNB. The Bullseye is an ultra stable LNB for receiving QO-100 and other Ku-Band satellites/applications. We'll be ending this sale on Wednesday, so if you'd like to purchase a unit please order soon to avoid missing out on the sale price. The current sale price is US$19.97 including free worldwide shipping to most countries. 

To order the product, please go to our store, and scroll down until you see the QO-100 Bullseye TCXO LNB heading. Alternatively we also have stock via our Aliexpress store or on eBay.

For more information about the Bullseye and some reviews please see the original sale post.

The Bullseye LNB for QO-100

Microwave Humidity Sounder Decoder for the NOAA-19 Satellite Released

Back in June we posted about the release of  Zbigniew Sztanga's NOAA-HIRS-Decoder which can decode HIRS instrument data which measures the vertical temperature profile of the Earth's surface. This HIRS signal is broadcast by NOAA satellites at the same time as their APT images and the HIRS frequency is close by at 137.350 MHz. 

Recently Zbigniew has released a new decoder for the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) instrument which is available on NOAA-19 only. This MHS instrument observes the Earth in the 89-190 GHz microwave band, which can be useful for measuring humidity levels. However, unlike the APT and HIRS signals which downlink data at around 137 MHz, the MHS data is broadcast in the L-band within the HRPT signal, so a motorized or tracked satellite dish will be required to receive it. Zbigniew writes:

The MHS (Microwave humidity sounder) is an instrument on NOAA-18 and NOAA-19. It replaced the older AMSU-B. It has a resolution of 90px per line and 5 channels.
 
Data from the instrument is present in HRPT and can be decoded with my new software. Unfortunately, only MHS on N-19 is working, because N-18's NHS is dead.
 
The instrument can be used to monitor low clouds, percipation and water vaopr in the atmosphere. I attached a sample image to the email.
 
It's available on the same repo as Aang23' HRPT decoders: https://github.com/altillimity/L-Band-Decoders/tree/master/NOAA%20MHS%20Decoder
Microwave Humidity Sounder data from NOAA-19.

Sanchez Updates: Combine Weather Images from GK-2A, Himawari-8, GOES 16/17 Satellites into one Composite Image

Back in August we posted about the release of Sanchez, a tool originally designed to apply a color underlay image to grayscale infrared images received from geostationary weather satellites such as GOES 16/17, Himawari-8 and GK-2K. The tool has recently been updated with some very nice new features.

One of the new features is the ability to composite together images obtained from multiple satellites in order to form a full equirectangular image of the earth with live cloud cover. Another feature is the ability to use two or more images from different satellites to reproject back to geostationary projection at a specified longitude, essentially creating an image from a virtual satellite.

Image composed of GK-2A, Himawari-8, GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites (full resolution images available at https://github.com/nullpainter/sanchez/wiki/Sample-images