NOAAport help

[weatherman]

Good day, everyone.

I'm new to satellite dishes - my primary hobby is weather. The idea of being able to get a full weather data feed to mess around with is intruiging enough to put some money into it and I'm looking for a little help.

I'd like to pull the DVB-S NOAAport data feed from AMC-4. The signal characteristics are:

Transponder: 13C
Uplink center frequency: 6,181.5000 MHz
Downlink center frequency: 3,956.5000 MHz
Center Frequency (L-band): 1193.5 MHz
Symbol Rate: 6.349422 Msymbols/sec
Data rate: 10.240 Mbits/sec
Occupied bandwidth: 8.6 MHz
Modulation: QPSK - 7/8 rate

I have a place to place a dish with a clear view of 101W and based on the map here, the EIRP for my area (SE PA) is just above 40.

According to this site, the minimum sized dish for this is around 1.8m . With that in mind, I've been lookin at the Fortec Star 6' (180cm) dish from Saudon. Is this dish "enough"? While I don't mind the occasional signal fade, if going with this small a dish is going to be an issue, I'd opt for the 240cm version.

Will any old LNB and feed horn do or do I need something specific? Can I just pick one up off of eBay?

From the LNB, I will connect to a Novra S-75 receiver. The line length from the LNB will probably be about 15-20 feet. Once it gets to the receiver, the data is sent over ethernet - which is a realm that I am comfortable.

Am I on the right track or am I completely missing some things?

Thanks for any help/suggestions,
- WxMan

 

[Styler1]

I am also looking to do the same thing. However I think the dish size is too small for the 2 degree satellite spacing and adjacent satellite interference maybe a problem. There is a member of this board, Shawn95GT
who has a 5 foot mesh c/ku dish and I was going to contact him to see what kind of signal / quailty he gets on the NOAAPORT feed..I don't plan on doing anything until spring for building my system as it's a tad cold up here in Wisconsin now...

Scott

 

[Shawn95GT]

I'd be glad to swing the dish over to 101 and see what I can see.

I'll need to re-arrange some stuff to do it (the Pansat isn't hooked up at the moment) but it's worth a shot.

I noticed that there is a TV channel on that same transponder according to lyngsat.

tp 13U 3973 V - S/R 4362. I'll blind scan and then try these two specific ones with the Pansat.

I'll post up the results when I can get it done.

 

[bryansr]

I helped with a NOAA Weather Dish install for a county agency a while back. The dish was a commercial grade Prodelin 3 meter solid dish and it fed to a computer card satellite receiver that was on a network. It took a SPECIAL Digital LNB that I presume was L band capable the NOAA Contractor had a PC laptop Computer to help with the setup. when I adjusted the dish JUST RIGHT and got close to the signal the software in the computer would respond with a rate change and contractor wanted a specific minimum rate for the NOAA system to receive the signal. This took all day to align this dish to reach the maximum usable signal, even though the contractor said we SHOULD be able to get a higher strength according to his calculations BUT I told him his calculations were based on Colorado and we are in Georgia. This was SEVERAL years ago and I am not sure that they have changed their system but what I set up was not designed for the casual weather watcher.

 

[weatherman]

That was the legacy NOAAport system - 4 T1 channels on GE-4 transponder 15C.

Now, using DVB-S on a different transponder (13C) and an inexpensive receiver (Novra S75), the NOAAport output will be on Ethernet out of the receiver to IP multicast addresses.

The costs are basically the dish ($200 - $300 new), the receiver ($350 new), LNB/feedhorn ($75 ??), and a spare computer (I have a few lying around) to run the software.

 

[Change]

I'm hoping to play with NOAAport some as well. Check out this Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/noaaport/

Also, for a somewhat less expensive solution, here's a howto on using a Twinhan card for reception: http://hwic.net/projects/weather/noaaport/

 

[Shawn95GT]

I'm hoping to play with NOAAport some as well. Check out this Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/noaaport/

Also, for a somewhat less expensive solution, here's a howto on using a Twinhan card for reception: http://hwic.net/projects/weather/noaaport/

Nice find! I was wondering if a DVB card would do the same. It'd definately be a LOT cheaper.

One of these days I'll get a USB DVB tuner...

Shawn

 

[Styler1]

Thanks Shawn for checking for us. Your results will help me since I don't want to purchase the dish if it does not work. Let us know the quality number you get....

Scott

 

[Shawn95GT]

Ok, scanning AMC4 now.... I see it. It Blind scanned in as 3958V, 6.349 S/R

The Signal Quality is 30% on that TP (On the Pansat).

It comes in about the same as 'God's Learning Channel' does at 4125V.

For comparison 'Cornerstone TV' at 3709V is booming in at 90% Quality.

That's a 5' dish (63" across the face... pretty much a 160cm dish) & a 15° Norsat LNB.

 

[Styler1]

Thank you for checking...30% is not too bad for the setup. Is it a constant 30% or did you notice any fluctuation?? I would imagine a 180cm solid and a Novra-S box may do a bit better. I was shocked you were able to lock it, but this is very good news and thanks a bunch for checking. I hope to put together a system next spring...

Scott

 

[Shawn95GT]

It was pretty steady on 30%. It would flicker to 29 but was mostly at 30.

I think a 180cm dish would do quite nice for this.

I don't know if it matter but I'm in Phoenix, AZ. I'm guessing I'm in the '40' area on the AMC 4 C-band footprint:

http://www.ses-americom.com/americom/siteSections/satellitesAndTeleports/coverageareas/cband/amc4/

Shawn