NOAAport help

[JerryTuesday]

The signal from SES-1 seems to be even in excess of the level needed to make good images now. I'd like to be able to know how much they decrease the signal level when they drop the level soon. I estimated the S/N level by rotating the polarization thru a signal Max and Min. The ratio is close to 9 dB now and the Twinhan shows 100% Quality. It will be very interesting to me to see how the S/N ratio varies when "they" reduce the transmitted power level.

Jerry

 

[swingbozo]

Sorry to jump in here late... (and slightly off topic)

What's the program everyone is using to pull the data feeds off of these birds? I was going to try to pull emwin-n off of one of those GOES birds but the information on how to do this using stock FTA equipment is rare as hens teeth. I'm going to get a prof revolution dvb-s2 7500 USB device to hook to my 90cm dish with a quad invacom. I wanted to just mess about with this to see if I can actually pick up anything. All the EMWIN guys are like, "go blow $2000 on a wernerlabs turnkey setup then call me in the morning." I'm not going to do that. I know my dish is a little under sized but I should be able to verify if I can actually get some kind of information off of those birds.

Also, how do you hook up that way cool spectrum analyzer to see this information? Is there a PC version I can throw at this in the mean time?

Thanks,

swingbozo

PS: Currently running a pansat 9200 with a dvb-s2 card, have CW 600, CW 800, the dreaded CW 3000, a couple coolsats, a sonysat, some other stuff I've forgotten, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

[JerryTuesday]

Hi Swingbozo
You can get the EMWIN text data from the NOAAPORT satellite (SES-1) without spending significant $$. It will impress me if you can get the signal with a 1 meter dish. Patrik Tast has been working on a free program that decodes the NOAAPORT signal using a PCI TV (POES-Weather Ltd). The forcasted change from DVB-s to DVB-S2 will introduce some changes
I suggest that, if you want EMWIN from NOAAPORT, at low cost, you consider searching for someone who wants to give you their unwanted 10 foot dish.

Jerry

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

I'm back, after a time away

Hi All,
Sorry for the late replys but I have not had email updates on the form and have been busy here, so now for some catchup.
First... Jerry
That is one reason the USRP doesn't get a lot of attn. Because A lot of us don't understand it. Though those who have worked with it have some understanding of it's capabilities. Unfortunately it takes you to be a RF engineer to set it up,That it's self scares people away from using it.
Though from what little I understand about it it seems to be very flexible.

"Martin has been able to demodulate and decode the EMWIN using the GOES-11 signal received with the USRP. He said he'd like less noise (as received using the 6 foot deep dish), so I thought the bigger, 2.22 meter dish might help him"

EMWIN should be able to be decoded using a 4' dish and a low noise amp with little problems. If you are having issues getting it on a 6' dish with a LNA something is wrong. I use a 8' dish here with a ULNB (made by down east microwave) and have the EMWIN signal meter pegged.

"We are just fascinated by the fact that the signals are there and available for use by rank amateurs to view images of the world as seen from satellites."

I agree it is fascinating, And available to anyone who can setup a ground station

"I was totally lost regarding the design of an antenna that is capable of receiving the APT signal."

APT is circular polarized, Most use a Helix Quadrafilar antenna.
Before they went to digital I could use my vertical ham antenna (Cushcraft AR270B) with reasonable results getting images. However, I was already on GOES east at that time and polar transmissions just didn't cut it.

" the antenna is of almost no interest to the APT community. So, I am not surprised that there is little interest in the USRP/Internet available signals I get."

Well, I can't say that I would put it that way. True that ya Wx satellites have been of waining interest over the years, Internet has made this type of data much more available and cheaper. But if you want near real time the internet can fall short and if you don't have internet capabilities well direct reception may be the only way to go.
APT satellite reception is more popular overseas than in the US( feel free to correct me if needed) So most attn seems to be focused overseas.
And a lot of these guys are using HRPT. (High Res Polar Transmission)

"I thought it might be interesting to be able to show images of South America, so GOES-12 became of interest. It seems so distant that a big dish will be needed."

Not true, GOES 12 is putting out the same power as all the rest of the GOES satellites. Infact GOES 12 is closer to you than GOES 13. What you use on GOES 11 should work on 12.

"It will be very interesting to me to see how the S/N ratio varies when "they" reduce the transmitted power level."

Well here it has remained near full on Strength and quality, though the quality bar has dropped as much as 75% at certain times. The NOAAPORT satellite is stronger that it was. I like it.
How much you ask? I'd say by 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 dB over what is was when I posted those screen pics.
I have had no more outages since the passage of the Zombie sat, wwwwhhhhhhoooooooo.

There will be a second part coming.

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

The Second half

Hi Swingbozo
"EMWIN N" is not available off of DVB (to my knowage), though as Jerry stated the text products are available off DVB through NOAAPORT.
EMWIN N is broadcast on the L band 1692.7 Mhz Off of the GOES East & West satellites.

Want to ad, That with the install of wxmessage you can use the internet to get EMWIN data.
So if you don't want to fork out the $$ for an entire earth station there are other options.
There is a license fee after 30 days to use wxmessage. It's near $50.

"I was going to try to pull emwin-n off of one of those GOES birds but the information on how to do this using stock FTA equipment is rare as hens teeth."

That is one big problem now with the new format, equipment is hard to come by that is not commercial. Specific software for displaying and receiving EMWIN is available by skywatch.org and wxmessage.
What tends to be the way to receive EMWIN N is after the 1.6 ghz signal is received it is downconverted to 139.2 Mhz where is is turned to audio on I & Q outputs. Software loaded into your computer uses your soundcard to decode the EMWIN N data stream turning in to a IP stream that the EMWIN software listens to and finishes the reception of the data.

What you basically need is this:
A 4' dish and a L band downconverter with an LNA
I use here (Werner labs) EMWIN 2 dual mode receiver
a computer loaded up with the soundcard decoder software and EMWIN display software.

Unfortunately unlike the old EMWIN broadcast that used FSK, OQPSK with FEC is much more difficult to decode.

"All the EMWIN guys are like, "go blow $2000 on a wernerlabs turnkey setup then call me in the morning."

If you have not done EMWIN before it changed then they may be right, you will have to build a ground station for the bottom up.
Unfortunately it is a "small" investment.
Luckily I already had the dish, downconverter, LNB, here so all I had to get was the new IF adapter (which cost enough) and some new reception software.
NOAAPORT on the other hand is cheaper but requires a dish no smaller than 8' , The other issue is that NOAAPORT send a good chunk of data in binary form such as GRIB, BUFR and soforth so unless you have the proper software to display this format it will look like garble.
The warnings and text bulletins are sent as text and no special software is required to display it.
Another + is that through the NOAAPORT software you get the GOES channel. See pervious posts for info.
Other image files found on EMWIN are NOT on NOAAPORT because NOAAPORT sends the raw data, The type of data the all the NWS's use mentioned above.

"I know my dish is a little under sized but I should be able to verify if I can actually get some kind of information off of those birds."

KU band will not work on L band.

"Also, how do you hook up that way cool spectrum analyzer to see this information? Is there a PC version I can throw at this in the mean time?"

I use an HP 141T here, I know of no software versions available. But may not hurt to ask around to see if something is out there.

And Hi to Phil (paraclipseCKu)


Tim KC0HWG

 

[JerryTuesday]

Hi All,
Sorry for the late replys but I have not had email updates on the form and have been busy here, so now for some catchup.
First... Jerry
That is one reason the USRP doesn't get a lot of attn. Because A lot of us don't understand it. Though those who have worked with it have some understanding of it's capabilities. Unfortunately it takes you to be a RF engineer to set it up,That it's self scares people away from using it.
Though from what little I understand about it it seems to be very flexible.

I think you have the right perspective related to the USRP. It is probable that Software Defined Radios will be more and more popular with "tomorrow's" amateurs.
I'd like to see guys like you get USRPs. Then, you could show me how to use mine. I depend entirely on Patrik to tell me how to use this Ettus USRP.

Jerry

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

Hi Jerry, Sorry for the long delay.

"It is probable that Software Defined Radios will be more and more popular with "tomorrow's" amateurs."

I have herd that software defined radio is what will be the radio of the future and that is already being done, Considering all the software in these current radios it is setting up for that.
Some local guys (hams) were talking about this subject.
Software radios are very flexible, That makes the cost of hardware cheaper and the same hardware platform can be used on many radios.
But it currently has some drawbacks that makes it unpopular.

"I'd like to see guys like you get USRPs. Then, you could show me how to use mine"

I don't even know where to get one, Suggestions Jerry?

Tim KC0HWG

 

[JerryTuesday]

Hi Tim
My knowledge of computer technology and Internet access is so limited that I am reluctant to write much about my current project related to the Ettus USRP. Patrik Tast is able to tell you more about my "station". We have made my USRP available to anyone in the world via the Internet. So, if you have the background knowledge, you are able to operate my USRP by connecting to my Linux computer. i have a couple L-band systems running right now, GOES-11 and HRPT. Google Patrik tast to get the contact information.

Jerry

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

Hi Jerry

"So, if you have the background knowledge, you are able to operate my USRP by connecting to my Linux computer"

I don't have the background knowledge to operate a USRP, It would be quite a learning process.
The Linux computer I have here does the GVAR, I can do small things with it but after that things get real fuzzy. Linux is a powerful operating system.
I have contacted Patrik Tast before about is software before so I have here somewhere his info.

Tim KC0HWG

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

An Update from here

Wanted to chime in,
I continue to use NOAAPORT here and the signal has remained stronger then when I started to receive it. Bolth the strength and quality bars mostly remain full, though the quality bar has dropped to about 3/4 of full.
I have had no more interference issues.
The one thing that has surprised me the most is the SES 1 satellite is still sending the data in the DVB-S format, they have yet to upgrade to the DVB-S2 format.
I'll take it, That means I don't have to do any changes to my computer for now.

Tim KC0HWG

 

[JerryTuesday]

Hi Tim

I am using my 2 meter dish to look at GOES satellites. But, I'd like to put the C-band feed back on it to look at SES-1 when they get DVB-S2 working. If you get any information on the NOAAPORT signal, I'd sure like to hear about it.

Thanks
Jerry

Wanted to chime in,
I continue to use NOAAPORT here and the signal has remained stronger then when I started to receive it. Bolth the strength and quality bars mostly remain full, though the quality bar has dropped to about 3/4 of full.
I have had no more interference issues.
The one thing that has surprised me the most is the SES 1 satellite is still sending the data in the DVB-S format, they have yet to upgrade to the DVB-S2 format.
I'll take it, That means I don't have to do any changes to my computer for now.

Tim KC0HWG

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

Hi All,
NOAAPORT is still broadcasting in DVB-S format for now so no changes as of yet Jerry.
But concering NOAAPORT data I found a wonderful program that can open gridded data, GRIB, Area format, GRLevel 3 and 2 radar.
It runs in a java web enviromant. I used this software to open the binary satellite images, and radar (ex. N0ROAXNE.txt ) and was able to display it on the screen. Best of all it's free.
here is a link to the page

NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit

NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit (Viewer and Data Exporter)
----------
It can stand alone or work over the web to get and process data.

For real time data copy and paste this in the THREDDS data tab.

http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/catalog.xml

It will take some work to get familiar with the program but once you do it is very handy.
You can view CLASS's full resolution satellite data with this software.

Can be used on Windows, mac OS/X, Unix/Linux.

I am attaching two of the binary GRLevel 3 Radar/ satellite image files to here so that you can see what I am talking about.

Tim KC0HWG

 

[ParaclipseCKu]

Tim,

Thanks for the link. Seems to be a nice program and processes fairly quickly. Not crazy about the way the models are displayed but in combination with IDV I can at least start browsing all the data I'm pulling off my noaaport system. One of these days I may get around to installing gempak and learning yet another program!

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

Thanks ParaclipseCKu

It's job seems best at radar and satellite data, It has it's limits but this is where it's possibilities are big depending on if the code is open.
I see this program capable of doing many things if some more time in put into it.
I believe it can open GEMPAK files as well, Here are the formats supported
-------------------------------------------------
CF-compliant Gridded NetCDF
Generic CF-compliant Irregularly-Spaced/Curvilinear Gridded NetCDF/HDF
GRIB1, GRIB2, GINI, GEMPAK, HDF (CF-compliant) and more gridded formats
GOES Satellite AREA Files
NEXRAD Radar Data (Level-II and Level-III)
U.S. Drought Monitor Service (from the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC))
OPeNDAP support for Gridded Datasets
----------------------------------------------------
That's one of the real issues with weather data, it has many different formats and that makes it difficult to display all the info with one program.
One thing I'd like to see this program do is display surface metar plots and and upperair maps along with the soundings.
But it is great to see software out there that can display full res. satellite data and not cost $$$$$.
For anybody out there I don't know if this can display the raw GOES GVAR data, Considering it is a GRIDDED format my guess is yes.
The guy that wrote this is still improving it.
It is a great program for what it is intended for.
I am putting up the data for the radar file descriptions so you can look at the different options GRLevel 3 offers, These are all on NOAAPORT.
see attachment



Tim KC0HWG

 

[ParaclipseCKu]

Bulletins courtesy of WX1CT NOUS72 KNCF 121944
ADMNCF
.
PLEASE PASS TO THE MIC/HIC, SOO, ESA, ITO AND AFP:
--------------------------------------------
WHAT - SBN/NOAAPORT EXPANSION AND HARDWARE UPGRADE
DATE - MAY 11, 2011
NOTICE - 010
--------------------------------------------
SBN ACTIVATION INFORMATION - MAY 11, 2011
--------------------------------------------
THE NWS HAS RESOLVED ALL PENDING ISSUES WITH THE
NEW -SBN/NOAAPORT- SIGNAL. OPERATIONAL ACTIVATION
OF THE NEW -SBN/NOAAPORT- SIGNAL WILL TAKE PLACE
ON MAY 20, 2011.
.
TO AID OUR CUSTOMERS WITH THE TRANSITION, THE DUAL
ILLUMINATION WILL REMAIN ACTIVE FOR AN ADDITIONAL
28 DAYS TILL THE EVENING OF JUNE 17TH 2011. THIS
WILL ALLOW AWIPS SITES AND NOAAPORT CUSTOMERS
ADEQUATE TIME TO COMPLETE THE TRANSITION.
.
THE NWS ALSO CONFIRMED THE NEW FREQUENCY FOR THE
NEW -SBN/NOAAPORT- SIGNAL WILL BE --1154.15MHZ--.
.
------------------------------------------
PLANNING DATES
1. DUAL ILLUMINATION DATES
START: APRIL 17, 2011
END: JUNE 17, 2011 - 2359Z (8:00PM EST)
2. DECOMMISSION DVB-S
END: JUNE 18, 2011 - 0001Z
--------------------------------------------
.
ALL TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS AS WELL AS UPDATES
FOR THIS UPGRADE CAN BE FOUND ON THE FOLLOWING
WEB PAGE
.
------------------------------------------
NOAAPORT User's Page
------------------------------------------
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR ENCOUNTER ANY PROBLEMS,
PLEASE REPORT THE PROBLEM TO THE NOAAPORT
SUPPORT TEAM USING THE EMAIL ADDRESS BELOW.
NWS.NOAAPORT.SUPPORT -AT- NOAA.GOV
------------------------------------------
via Noaaport

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the info ParaclipseCKu.
Also there are more products in GRLevel3 than shown in that txt file I posted, I will be updating that later. Time for the upgrade.

Tim KC0HWG

 

[ParaclipseCKu]

Tim,

I have been using GR3 for several years. Lots more stuff that I have time to evaluate! Works pretty well with the Noaaport system and GR3 updating my web pages.

ctskywarn.com and norwalkweather.com

 

[JerryTuesday]

Hi All,
NOAAPORT is still broadcasting in DVB-S format for now so no changes as of yet Jerry.
But concering NOAAPORT data I found a wonderful program that can open gridded data, GRIB, Area format, GRLevel 3 and 2 radar.
It runs in a java web enviromant. I used this software to open the binary satellite images, and radar (ex. N0ROAXNE.txt ) and was able to display it on the screen. Best of all it's free.
here is a link to the page
Tim KC0HWG

Hi Tim

I have interest in locating a low cost L-band TV that will demodulate the new (DVB-S2) NOAAPORT signal. At this time I am unsure about the size dish I'll need. I was receiving low signal level a few months ago when the satellite was sending DVB with 1/3rd the bandwidth now being used. I have some doubt that I will be able to get enough signal with my 2.8 foot dish when trying to receive the new (DVB-S2) modulation.

How strong is the NOAAPORT signal right now?

Jerry

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

I have interest in locating a low cost L-band TV that will demodulate the new (DVB-S2) NOAAPORT signal. At this time I am unsure about the size dish I'll need. I was receiving low signal level a few months ago when the satellite was sending DVB with 1/3rd the bandwidth now being used. I have some doubt that I will be able to get enough signal with my 2.8 foot dish when trying to receive the new (DVB-S2) modulation.

It's been 5 years WOW, since the last post here and more changes to come with the GOES R bird to launch.
I am wondering if JerryTusday ever did get himself a NOAAPORT station set up and if anybody is watching this thread anymore. I still use NOAAPORT here for the time being.

 

[GOES 12 GVAR user]

How strong is the NOAAPORT signal right now?

This is a lot late to answer this question but with a 10' dish I have about 2 -3 dB of margin for the signal here in Southern IA. Works good even though the dish pole is just buried in the ground with no concrete. Even with the movement in the wind it works good on the DVB-S2 format. Reliably receive GOES images and much more off the stream.