What is NOAA?
What are the images?
There are several NOAA
satellites in a sun-synchronous polar orbit around the earth at this very
moment. The NOAA satellite data is available
to any receiving station within the satellite’s footprint. NOAA, the National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
satellites come around the earth at roughly the same time each day. Each satellite makes approximately three
passes, one to the east, one overhead, and one to the west at two times each
day. Each pass is approximately 100
minutes apart.
Pictures are sent using the Automatic Picture
Transmission (APT) system. Imagery
shows the earth from a height of 800 to 1600 km. Two complete images are
displayed side by side. One image is in the near IR (infrared) and the other is
in visible light during the spacecraft's day and far IR during the spacecraft's
night. Image resolution is 4 km at the suborbital point and each swath is
approximately 2,700 km wide. Visible light images show geographic features and
weather features. Near IR images show geographic features and additional
weather features not visible in visible light. Far IR images show weather features
defined by their temperature and some geographic features. APT imagery comes
from polar orbit satellites such as NOAA 14,15 and Meteor 3-5. Click here for more
information.
The pictures you see are visible pictures taken by
NOAA 15 and NOAA 14, 15 in the morning and 14 in the afternoon. The data is real time, every image
represents a unique set of data which is not available anywhere else.
For hardware and software requirements, click on the links. Also, visit any of the listed locations for
further information.
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Receiving
Satellite Transmissions
Equipment
Depending on the
satellites that you want to listen to, your receiving equipment may need to
cover the 135-145 Mhz, the 435-437 Mhz, and/or around the 1.2 Ghz ranges. You
may want to consider additional equipment like decoders and digital modems and
such.
A good receiver is the
R139 Weatherfax Receiver. For more information
on the R139 and other equipment, go to the Hamtronics website.
There are various kinds of antennas which you can
use and picking one depends on what you want to listen to, where you want to
listen, how much money you want to put into it, how much time, how
technical-oriented you are, etc.
Yagi's are fairly common and must be aimed, either
by hand or with a rotor. You can even have the rotor computer-controlled with
various interfaces, cards, and software.
Omnidirectional antennas work too, depending on
what you're trying to receive.
Using a pre-amp can help pick out those weak
signals. Make sure that you attach it as near to the antenna as possible,
otherwise you'll be amplifying a lot of noise along with the signal.
A good antenna is the TS-137 Turnstile APT Antenna
with the pre-amp in the antenna itself.
Visit Quorum
Communications
for more information.
The software we use is WXSAT. It is decodes the
satellite transmissions and displays it as visual images. You must make sure your palette is set
exactly right for the different satellites at different times, or you mightn’t
be happy with the results
Here is the best and largest collection
of decoding software for sound cards. You'll find stuff for CW,
weather fax, RTTY, etc.. Amateur
Radio Soundblaster Software Collection.
Satellite Frequencies
The best and most updated source is at http://members.home.net/davebate/satlist.htm
Frequencies for satellites launched in 1998 as available in
the open domain to Sven Grahn
Frequencies for satellites launched in 1997 as available in
the open domain to Sven Grahn
Frequencies for satellites launched in 1996 as available in
the open domain to Sven Grahn
Frequencies for satellites launched in 1995 as available in
the open domain to Sven Grahn
For additional NOAA
images, taken in 1998, visit the following site:
Satellite
Images of South Asia