Satdump software & wxsat reception

[Terryl]

Well I know how to set it for the NOAA and Meteor satellites on the 137 MHz band, but there is no settings that I can see for the 1700 MHz band.

 

[Analoguesat]

A decent Meteor M2-3 pass this morning at 1029utc

 

[Terryl]

A nice pass this morning on NOAA-19.


Still having mid pass noise problems, still looking.

 

[Analoguesat]

A possible high angle null?

 

[Terryl]

I had a very nice almost noise free pass this morning on NOAA-18, don't know what happened, I haven't changed anything on the settings.

 

[Analoguesat]

Nice image - I generally find NOAA18 is barely worth bothering with as the images are on the whole very poor.

 

[Terryl]

Yah they are poor resolution at best, that's why I'm working on trying to get the Meteor's working better.

I think I might have to raise the antenna a bit to see if that helps, the trees are starting to fill out with leaves.

 

[Analoguesat]

I didnt mean poor resolution - just horrible. Its rare I get a clean image with 18.

 

[pontiend]

There were three M2-4 pass in the night.For a change I left the computer on.Previously I have got nothing .This time I got good images on the 4.20 am pass.On a couple of images I think that I can see the pass location.My best guess is that Norway is top middle Normandy sticking out bottom left.

 

[Analoguesat]

Yup Scandanavia & Normandy visible on that one with the UK hidden under the thunderstorms...

Met M2-4 was back on 137.1 earlier when I turned the system on & was idly watching the spectrum to make sure everything was set up again

 

[cirio70]

After reading this thread i I became envious so i built a Turnstile antenna with 4 copper rods (6 mm diameter), placed it on a pole tied to a ladder and connected it to my rtl-sdr with some meters of sat-tv cable.

I got a nice pass from meteor-m4 but since i had to stop and restart the live decoding to update the frequency (i still had 137.9 in my settings) i can't overlay a map so i'm not able to understand what part of Europe i see....

 

[Terryl]

I think it might be 180 degrees out, try inverting the photo in the viewer section.

 

[Terryl]

Also most SDR dongles are a 50 ohm input, you could get better results if you use some 50 ohm coax, I know 25 ohms doesn't look that far off but in the RF world it's a big deal.

And on your turnstile antenna, how did you match the receiving elements (the copper rods) to the coax?

 

[pontiend]

After reading this thread i I became envious so i built a Turnstile antenna with 4 copper rods (6 mm diameter), placed it on a pole tied to a ladder and connected it to my rtl-sdr with some meters of sat-tv cable.

I got a nice pass from meteor-m4 but since i had to stop and restart the live decoding to update the frequency (i still had 137.9 in my settings) i can't overlay a map so i'm not able to understand what part of Europe i see....


View attachment 155663

That looks similar to the scan that I got at 15.06.I think that is 16.06 UTC.I did not expect anything from that pass I think that it clashed with a NOAA19 pass.M2-4 is set at 137.100 Mhz here.I do not have a clue of the location either.

 

[Analoguesat]

After reading this thread i I became envious so i built a Turnstile antenna with 4 copper rods (6 mm diameter), placed it on a pole tied to a ladder and connected it to my rtl-sdr with some meters of sat-tv cable.

I got a nice pass from meteor-m4 but since i had to stop and restart the live decoding to update the frequency (i still had 137.9 in my settings) i can't overlay a map so i'm not able to understand what part of Europe i see....


View attachment 155663

England, the North Sea & continental Europe. Many of the images need rotating 180 degrees.

A smashing image for a first attempt Well done

 

[Analoguesat]

I wont be posting any images for a few days - Ive had to take all the antennas down as the garage they are all fastened to is having a new tin roof fitted.

 

[Terryl]

I wont be posting any images for a few days - Ive had to take all the antennas down as the garage they are all fastened to is having a new tin roof fitted.

The new tin roof may affect your signals (if it was not tin before) try grounding it if you have problems.

 

[cirio70]

Also most SDR dongles are a 50 ohm input, you could get better results if you use some 50 ohm coax, I know 25 ohms doesn't look that far off but in the RF world it's a big deal.

And on your turnstile antenna, how did you match the receiving elements (the copper rods) to the coax?

The 75 Ohm cable was the only one i had at the moment. I ordered 30 meters of RG58, it should arrive tomorrow.
I followed this scheme to build and connect the antenna:

Please note that i used to grab NOAA's APT long time ago, i had an ICOM 4000 and a QFH antenna (built by me of course...) but after moving to my new house everything got lost. Now i have a magnetic loop for 0-30 Mhz and the Turnstile for the VHF. I was thinking to buy a Discone but since the turnstile seems good even for the 120 144 160 and 430 MHz i think i'm good now with my antennas.

England, the North Sea & continental Europe. Many of the images need rotating 180 degrees.

Great! Thanks
I tried to rotate the image of course but still no clues...

That looks similar to the scan that I got at 15.06.I think that is 16.06 UTC.I did not expect anything from that pass I think that it clashed with a NOAA19 pass.M2-4 is set at 137.100 Mhz here.I do not have a clue of the location either.

It's exactly the same pass. for me it started few minutes early and the holes you see in my scan it's me messing with AGC and manual gain.

Bye all!

 

[pontiend]

This is the first decent M2-3 pass for a few days 11.46.There was a noaa 18 pass at 1137am.It was farther to the south and east though.I did not interfere much.It probably caused the lines at the bottom of the scan

 

[Terryl]

An almost perfect shot from NOAA-18 this afternoon.