How/where - do I get started?

 

Many beginners start with the analogue signals from NOAA polar orbiting satellites.
These APT (Automatic Picture Transmission) signals are transmitted in the 137 MHz VHF band.
The image consists of a visible and an infrared image side-by-side in daylight hours and two different IR channels at night but you have to wait for the satellite to pass over your location.
Daily pass times and frequencies can be found on another page.

For NOAA APT you will need (assuming you have a computer):

  1. An omni-directional turnstile antenna - see the GEO shop.
  2. A dedicated APT receiver - R2FX or R2ZX - see the GEO shop.
  3. Good quality coax cable to connect the antenna - Maplin/satellite TV Installer etc.
  4. A sound card in your computer.
  5. You will then need some processing software - freeware software is readily available on the Internet - as is polar orbiter satellite tracking software - though you will find blocks of three month predictions on this website.

For EUMETcast, Geostationary satellite data reception in Europe.

Owing to a problem with the first MSG (Meteosat Second Generation) satellite its imaging data had to be disseminated via a commercial TV satellite originally Hot Bird-6 now Eurobird-9. This system is in use today with Meteosat-9.
This unforeseen event has had two advantages - firstly all the 12 channel high resolution data from Meteosat along with many meteorological products, plus relays of 2 American satellites, a European Indian Ocean satellite and a Japanese satellite's imaging, plus high resolution extended coverage 5 channel imaging from NOAA polar orbiters, and global high resolution 5 channel imaging from the European Metop satellite, are all transmitted 24 hours a day via one data stream called EUMETCast in the Ku-band.

The second advantage of this dissemination system being that this vast amount of data can be received with relatively cheap and readily available domestic satellite TV equipment - available from the GEO shop.

Equipment required for reception of EUMETCast from Eurobird-9:

  1. A higher specification computer than for APT - CPU min 2 GHz, 1GB RAM minimum, 2GB recommended, 3 GB preferred. Hard drive at least 160GB, Windows 2000, XP or Vista.
  2. An 80/85 cm offset satellite TV dish and universal LNB - see the GEO shop page
  3. (a) DVBWorld DVB-S USB Box - which simply plugs into the computer's external USB socket.OR
    (b) TechniSat SkyStar 2 PCI card - installed inside your computer.
    4. See the GEO shop page for these units.
  4. Good quality satellite TV cable to connect dish e.g. CT100 from satellite TV installer/Maplin etc.
  5. TELLICAST reception software and access dongle to be purchased from and supplied by EUMETSAT when you have registered for the EUMETCast service - see our registration pages
  6. Processing, display and animation software - David Taylor’s comprehensive suite of EUMETCast software (See SatSignal software page). There is also some free use software xrit2pic from Rob Albas - details: www.albas.demon.nl/wsat/index.html

The DVBWorld USB Box from the GEO Shop is supplied with a GEO CD-ROM which provides a comprehensive on-screen guide to setting the box up together with all the software utilities required.
The SkyStar PCI card is supplied with a CD-ROM of software but please wait for the TELLICAST CD from EUMETSAT which contains all the software for configuring this card.

The CD from EUMETSAT also contains the TELLICAST and

dongle software with an on-screen-guide for installing these.

Full details of NOAA polar orbiter APT reception and EUMETCast (Europe, Africa and Americas [both C-band]) reception can be found on their individual pages on this website.

Technical support. Owing to the many operating systems and configurations in use by members receiving EUMETCast various aspects of support and information are dealt with via several Yahoo Groups user groups:

GEO-Subscribers - For all general aspects of weather satellite reception, display and GEO news and activities and member chit-chat and discussions. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/GEO-Subscribers/

MSG-1 - For news, information and problem solving regarding the EUMETCast service including TELLICAST software.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MSG-1/

AVHRR - News, information problem solving regarding NOAA Hi-Res and GAC polar orbiter imaging disseminated via EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AVHRR/

Metop - News, information and problem solving for Metop polar orbiter global AVHRR disseminated via EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/METOP/

SatSignal - News, information and problem solving/support for David Taylor's suite of software.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SatSignal/ and David's site http://www.satsignal.eu/software/wxsat.htm.

Weather satellite reports - A weekly bulletin of all weather satellite's operational status, issued on a Monday.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/weather-satellite-reports/

NOTE: Please refer technical queries to one of the above dedicated user groups for speedy advice - not to the GEO shop.