Tagged: weather satellites

Raspberry NOAA V2 Edition 2023 Image Released

Thank you to Manuel Lausmann for submitting news about the release of the "Raspberry NOAA V2 Edition 2023" image for Raspberry Pi's. This image has been created by Jochen Köster (DC9DD), and contains a few enhancements over the previous image, mainly by including a program that allows users to create composite images of images from the Meteor weather satellites. Manuel writes:

This is based on the well-known Raspberry Noaa V2. In this image, however, the latest MeteorDemod has been added, which makes it possible to generate composite images, which was previously only possible under Windows with Meteorgis.

Furthermore, the image has an additional FTP uploader. The image was created by Jochen Köster DC9DD. It's available from today. This image is also part of my off-grid station in Northern Norway.

Download link for the image: https://www.qsl.net/do3mla/raspberry-pi-images.html

Here is a link to the Facebook group for the image: https://www.facebook.com/groups/raspberrynoaav2edition

Here is a link to ranged from my off-grid station where this image is running: https://usradioguy.com/science/off-grid-apt-lrpt-satellite-ground-station

An example of a composite image from multiple Meteor satellite images.

An off-grid wind and solar powered APT/LRPT satellite image receiver with RTL-SDR

Over on the usradioguy.com blog, Carl Reinemann has highlighted a very impressive remote off-grid radio satellite image receiver setup by Manuel Lausmann (DO3MLA). The setup consists of two Raspberry Pi's, two RTL-SDRs and a QFH satellite antenna connected to an antenna splitter and bias tee. It is able to receive APT and LRPT images from NOAA and Meteor satellites which transmit at 137 MHz. The received images are then uploaded to the internet via a mobile LTE router.

The system is located a remote part of Northern Norway and is powered by a dual solar and wind turbine system with battery storage. Being so remote with little interference, the system is able to receive very clean images, and with the location being so Northern, it can even glimpse the north pole.

Manuel has uploaded a YouTube video where he shows each part of the system. It is in narrated in German, however the YouTube caption auto translate feature can be used.

He notes that in the future he hopes to install a web SDR like KiwiSDR on the site too.

Autarkstation für Funkanwendungen

Raspberry-NOAA V2: Raspberry Pi Automated NOAA and Meteor Weather Satellite Capture

Raspberry-NOAA is open source code and a set of scripts that allows you to set up a Raspberry Pi as an automated NOAA and Meteor weather satellite station with an SDR like an RTL-SDR. The software makes use of the Raspberry Pi version of WXtoIMG and meteor_decoder for decoding the satellites, a program called predict for predicting satellite passes, and various automatically generated cron scripts to schedule recording and processing.

Recently V2 has been released by Justin Karimi who builds on the work of the original creators. It seems that the webpanel has been upgraded and made mobile friendly, as well as many more enhancements that can be seen on the Release page notes.

Raspberry-NOAA V2 Web Panel

Look4Sat: An Android App for Tracking and Predicting Amateur Radio and Weather Satellite Passes

Thank you to Arty Bishop for submitting news about his recently released Android App called Look4Sat. Look4Sat is a satellite tracker and pass predictor with a focus on amateur radio and weather satellites. The app is free, ad free, and open source on GitHub.  Arty writes that he's programmed this as a learning exercise and notes:

I always wanted to have an offline and not bloated satellite tracker on my phone, as carrying the laptop at all times is kinda not too handy.

The app uses predict4java library under the hood and is written in Kotlin. The TLE files are from Celestrak and the transmitters info is from SatNOGS and once they are  ownloaded the app doesn't need an internet connection.

The app creation and design is hugely inspired by Gpredict which is an absolutely brilliant piece of software. Thank you, Alexandru!

Obviously there is no ads and it's totally free. Hope more people find Look4Sat useful.

The features include:

  • Calculating satellite passes for up to one week (168 hours)
  • Calculating passes for the current or manually entered location
  • Showing the list of currently active and upcoming satellite passes
  • Showing the active pass progress, polar trajectory and transceivers info
  • Showing the satellite positional data, footprint and ground track on a map
  • Offline first: pass prediction is done offline. It's up to you to decide when
    to update the TLE file and the transceivers DB. (Updates once a week are recommended)
Look4Sat Android App Screenshots
Look4Sat Android App Screenshots

Building a Tracking Mount for HRPT Weather Satellite Reception Part 2

Earlier this month we posted about The Thought Emporium who uploaded a video to YouTube where they documented the first steps of their construction of a tracking mount for a 2.4 GHz grid WiFi dish which they intend to use for HRPT weather satellite reception.

If you didn't already know, receiving HRPT weather satellite signals is a little different to the more commonly received NOAA APT or Meteor M2 LRPT images which most readers may already be familiar with. HRPT is broadcast by the same NOAA satellites that provide the APT signal at 137 MHz, but is found in the L-band at around 1.7 GHz. The signal is much weaker, so a high gain dish antenna with motorized tracking mount, LNA and high bandwidth SDR like an Airspy is required. The payoff is that HRPT images are much higher in resolution compared to APT.

In this video they document the steps required to finish the physical build and add the electronics and motors required to control and move the dish. The final product is a working tracking mount that should be able to track the NOAA satellites as they pass over. In the next video which is not yet released they plan to actually test reception.

Track Satellites in Orbit - Part 2

Building a Tracking Mount for HRPT Weather Satellite Reception

Over on YouTube channel The Thought Emporium recently released a new video where they show the first steps they've taken towards building a home made satellite tracking mount for receiving HRIT and HRPT low earth orbit weather satellites. In their build they use a 2.4 GHz WiFi parabolic grid antenna, gears and mounts made from milled wood, and some metal supports. The build is not yet finished, but they intend to show their progress in future videos. Note that we're not confident that the 2.4 GHz grid antenna will actually work for them. In the past people have had success with 1.9 GHz Grid antennas however.

If you didn't already know, receiving HRPT weather satellite signals is a little different to the more commonly received NOAA APT or Meteor M2 LRPT images which most readers may already be familiar with. HRPT is broadcast by the same NOAA satellites that provide the APT signal at 137 MHz, but is found in the L-band at around 1.7 GHz. The signal is much weaker, so a high gain dish antenna with motorized tracking mount, LNA and high bandwidth SDR like an Airspy is required. The payoff is that HRPT images are much higher in resolution compared to APT.

Actually, it's not entirely true that a tracking mount is required, although it certainly makes things easier. We've seen in the past that 'Tysonpower' was able to receive HRPT by tracking his dish by hand.

The Thought Emporium also note that they hope to use their tracking mount in the future for other purposes like amateur radio astronomy. In one of their previous experiments they've build a smaller version which was able to create a heat map of WiFi signal strengths in their area.

Tracking Satellites in Orbit - Part 1

YouTube Videos: NOAA Satellite Tutorial and Building a Radio Telescope

Over on the Thought Emporium YouTube channel the team have uploaded two videos that may be of interest to radio hobbyists. The first video shows a nice overview about receiving NOAA weather satellite images. They explain everything from scratch for complete novice, so the videos are great for almost anyone to watch and learn about radio and SDR concepts. The blurb of the first video reads:

Over the past 2 months, me and my friend Artem have been building antennas to receive signals from weather satellites as they pass overhead. This video chronicles our progress through this project and goes through some of the science involved in working with radio and receiving transmissions. We explore how dipoles work and how to build them, and how we built our final double cross 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 special software. We pulled images from 4 satellites: NOAA 15, 18 and 19 as well as METEOR M2. The satellites broadcast immediately as they take the images and no images are stored, so we’re likely the only ones on earth with these images.

How to Pull Images from Satellites in Orbit (NOAA 15,18,19 and METEOR M2)

The second video is about building a radio telescope. Like the NOAA video, they explain all concepts in a simple and easy to understand way, so that anyone even without any radio knowledge can understand what the project is about. In the video they also show how they use a 3D printer to create a tracking mount which can point a satellite dish. They then use the dish to create a satellite heat map. The blurb reads:

Over the last 2 months me and my friend Artem (you met him in the last video) built our first radio telescope. It was built mostly out of off the shelf components, like a satellite dish and Ku band LNB, as well as some parts we 3d printed. When all was said and done we had a system that could not only take images of the sky in radio frequencies (in this case 10-12ghz), but could also be used to track satellites. With it, we were able to see the ring of satellites in geosynchronous orbit, over 35,000km away, This is only the first of what I suspect will be many more telescopes like this. Next time we’ll be building ones that are far larger and can see things like the hydrogen lines so we can image the milky way.

How to Build a Radio Telescope (See Satellites 35,000km Away!)