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
Nice to see Zbychu getting the recognition! Just maybe a few corrections though; MHS operates in 89-190 GHz (just a typo there), and some if not most people who receive HRPT do it by hand, so a tracker is totally not a requirement 🙂