NOAA Port Moving

[Satellite KU FTA]

Received this e-mail from Greg about the new sat for NOAA Port. It will be interesting what the ERP will be with the move to Galaxy 28.

All,



The National Weather Service (NWS) will be moving from the SES-1 Satellite (101W) to the Galaxy 28 Satellite (89W) for all SBN/NOAAPORT data streams (Channel 101-105 and Channel 201).


Please see NWS Service Change Notice (SCN) 17-111 for details:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/scn17-111sbn_noaaport.htm

The transition phase is currently planned to begin December 5, 2017 with completion on January 16, 2018. Additional SCNs will be issued to update the transition schedule and information. These will be posted to the NWWS web page.



Respectfully,


Gregory Zwicker


NWWS Program Manager

 

[Satellite KU FTA]

Should have said carrier level on the new sat. Time for a micro bud test..

 

[Satellite KU FTA]

Should have said carrier level on the new sat. Time for a micro bud test..

Your right, meant to say carrier level. My brain had the day off when posting it and never got around to correcting it. Agree on a micro bud test, would be great to use one.

 

[Satellite KU FTA]

Looks like NOAA is looking for signal tests. Looks like a dish as small and if that works then a 6ft may work nicely. That would be awesome if it did turn out that a 6ft would work (most likely a micro bud) would not work. A weather hobbyists gift from the NWS!! I use WxMesg but use Weather Wire over the net but the software can support NOAA Port data. Every time there is a storm here my DSL connection dies, satellite would cure that of course if it's a real bad storm blowing the satellite link budget. This is a fun hobby to do, who needs an overpaid weather dork on local TV for the forecast.

Dear NWWS Satellite Users,


NWS is looking for volunteers currently using Channel 101-105 or Channel 201; specifically, users of <1.8m and 2.4m dishes, who may already plan to evaluate the new NWWS product stream(s) from the Galaxy 28 after it begins operational test period (dual operation with the SES-1) currently planned for December 5, 2017 to January 15, 2018.


NWS would like geographically disparate testing (or comparative testing if users have multiple systems) of the NWWS product stream reception from the Galaxy 28 before it becomes operational in January 2018.


If interested, please provide your results; including dish size, geographic location (latitude, longitude and elevation), channel being evaluated, type of test (single evaluation or comparative), length of evaluation, any product stream related-issues found, supporting files or documentation, and any successful solution(s) if implemented.


Send your results and questions to Gregory.Zwicker@noaa.gov courtesy copy to NWWS.Issue@noaa.gov .


Thank you.



Gregory Zwicker

NWWS Program Manager




Dear NWWS Satellite Users,

NWS is looking for volunteers currently using Channel 101-105 or Channel 201; specifically, users of <1.8m and 2.4m dishes, who may already plan to evaluate the new NWWS product stream(s) from the Galaxy 28 after it begins operational test period (dual operation with the SES-1) currently planned for December 5, 2017 to January 15, 2018.



NWS would like geographically disparate testing (or comparative testing if users have multiple systems) of the NWWS product stream reception from the Galaxy 28 before it becomes operational in January 2018.



If interested, please provide your results; including dish size, geographic location (latitude, longitude and elevation), channel being evaluated, type of test (single evaluation or comparative), length of evaluation, any product stream related-issues found, supporting files or documentation, and any successful solution(s) if implemented.



Send your results and questions to Gregory.Zwicker@noaa.gov courtesy copy to NWWS.Issue@noaa.gov .





Thank you.



Gregory Zwicker

NWWS Program Manager

 

[Cham]

Just curious, I get a strong TP at 3994MHz V 20714 S2 QPSK on 101W. It shows up as VCM, and data. What would work to receive this data and be able to view the maps etc? I have been trying a TBS data services app which seems to recognize the transponder but I have no idea how to set it up to work... if it does work, for the NOAA data streams. Searching through the noaa website I come up short of finding anything pertaining to these signals. Is there a wiki somewhere?
Tnx!
-C.

 

[N6BY]

Just curious, I get a strong TP at 3994MHz V 20714 S2 QPSK on 101W. It shows up as VCM, and data. What would work to receive this data and be able to view the maps etc? I have been trying a TBS data services app which seems to recognize the transponder but I have no idea how to set it up to work... if it does work, for the NOAA data streams. Searching through the noaa website I come up short of finding anything pertaining to these signals. Is there a wiki somewhere?
Tnx!
-C.

The trick is to create an IP stream of the NOAA TP. I think it can be done with the 'TBS IP' software and maybe also 'TBS Recorder'. There is an article which discusses how to create an IP stream using TBS cards. Its pages 13-19 of the following PDF: http://www.geo-web.org.uk/quarterly/geoq43.pdf Although the aforementioned PDF is meant for a different data stream (EUMETcast), the method of setting up the IP stream should be similar.

Then, of course, you need software to process the NOAA PORT stream. Here is a link to some Linux processing software: https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/ldm/ldm-current/utilities/noaaport/index.html It looks a bit complex. Hopefully there is similar Windows software available.

I haven't done the above yet. I plan to attempt it soon, but my dish is currently setup for L-Band and I need to reconfigure it for C-Band.

 

[Cham]

Found a problem with the TBS IP app. It basically disables reception of anything higher order than DVB-s QPSK on my 6903 card. Only remedy is to shut down the computer, turn off the p/s, let it sit for 5 minutes or so, and boot up. Suspect it is a memory overrun or software glitch.

Will have to look into another app or try to make it on a linux system. I see mentioned in some of the documentation RHE (Red Hat Enterprise), so maybe Centos would work as I think it's a derivative of RHE.

I have been successful using an RPI3 with a 5980 USB receiver but the receiver is intermittent and it only works for a minute or two at the most. (same thing on windows). Think these processes will require more horsepower than what the RPI will run though.

 

[N6BY]

Cham, I share your frustration with the TBS IP app.

I converted my dish back to C-Band today, pointed it to 101W, and connected it to a TBS6983. The TBS IP app would lock on 3994V 20714. But when I went to the "IP over DVB" tab it would not show any PIDs, even after I checked 'Show all activePIDs'. (Screen shot below)

So I ran TBS recorder and recorded 60 seconds of the stream. Then I looked at it in a hexadecimal editor and the recorded stream was almost entirely zeroes!

I am perplexed. Wondering why the stream doesn't appear to contain any data? Maybe it doesn't transmit all the time, is currently down, or ???

Aside from that, I have been doing a lot of online searching today and it appears that 'Nbsp' is the software that most people are using to process NOAAPORT data: NOAAPort and Nbsp

So, once we figure out how to create a stream the software part doesn't look to hard.

 

[N6BY]

OK, please disregard the above ^^^^^^

After more searching I finally found the NOAAPORT stream. On 9/9/2014 they changed it from 3994V 20714 to 4040V 30000. On a web page instructing users how to reconfigure their receivers, they tell them to change the frequency to 1110MHz. And 5150-1110 = 4040. Here is the web page where I found it: noaaport | Unisys Weather

So I tried the TBS IP app and got the expected PIDs. Then I used TBS Recorder like I did in the previous post and this time there was data, not all zeroes!

Most of the data was binary. However I did manage to find some plain ascii text and can verify that 4040V is the right stream. Below is a partial dump where I found the plain text. The next challenge is streaming this to the Nbsp program.

 

[Cham]

You're up early (or up very late!)
WIll try the new updated sat parameters... Thank you for the update, missed that here in my searches. Guess slow internet here doesn't help, and it was really slow yesterday for some reason.

from 3994V 20714 to 4040V 30000

I see it's 16psk as well!

 

[N6BY]

NOAA did a good job of hiding the new frequency. Lots of broken/missing web pages and outdated information with the 3994 frequency. It took me 2 hours to find the correct frequency, and it was listed as 1110 (assuming an LO of 0).

The question of the day is "Why is the old 3994 stream still up after 3 years and streaming zeroes?".

 

[N6BY]

Last night I hooked up a network tap to my PC running the TBS IP tool while tuned to NOAAPORT. Using WireShark, I didn't see any large quantity of packets flowing out of TBS IP -- probably because there was no client trying to connect.

There is a guy with the handle 'weather01089' on the OpenSatellite discussion chat that has a working NOAAPORT setup using a TBS card. He uses the TBS IP tool for outputting multicast frames. The NWS/Unidata LDM software is used to ingest the frames.

 

[N6BY]

I have been doing a lot of research on NOAA Port lately. Since my last post nearly three months ago, I have written a program (GRBStreamer) that can read directly from an ACM capable DVB card and stream it over a network.

I originally developed 'GRBStreamer' for GOES-R (and eventually GOES-S). Recently I adapted it to also stream from other sources, including NOAA Port and regular TV.

Today I began development of 'NPP' (NOAA Port Processor). So far it connects with a NOAA Port UDP stream from GRBStreamer. Next I will add code to generate images from the stream.

Since there are many types of data on NOAA Port and a full implementation could be overwhelming, I intend to initially focus on images. Might add some other data types in the future.

Anyway, just wanted to say that in a few weeks there will be an easy (and free) new way to capture NOAA Port images! Besides the software, all you will need is an 8 foot or larger dish, a C-Band LNB, and a Windows PC with an ACM capable DVB card.