NOAA-14 image with false color enhancement. Taken with fourth system of hardware and software discussed here. (Large version 1040x1240)

Receiving weather satellite imagery directly to your own ground station is great fun. For just a few hundred dollars you can begin a marvelous hobby for yourself, a wonderful educational tool for a school science class, or a great project for a space club.

Tracking satellites, setting up a receiver, waiting for the signals, decoding and studying the images - these activities bring a real sense of interaction and involvement with the extensive space infrastructure surrounding us and of which most people are unaware.

• The background of our project.
• LEO vs GEO weather satellite reception.
• Polar orbiters and how to receive their image broadcasts
• Basic procedure of obtaining the satellite images.
  

System 1

Sample image with System 1

Our first setup was the simplest and cheapest. A basic system as shown above consists of the following.. continue

Sample image with System 2

The second setup was basically the same as the first but used a custom receiver built by a ham radio enthusiast...continue

System 3

NOAA-14 image of Scandinavia with
false color enhancement.

The third setup involved a significant enhancement in capability. We still used the PCR1000 receiver and same antenna, but we replaced the decoding by the sound card with a commercial interface box and its software from TimeStep in Great Britain ....continue

NOAA-14 image of northern Europe
with false color enhancement.

The fourth setup went fully automatic. We replaced the Icom receiver with the PROscan receiver/scanner from TimeStep and now the PROsat program controlled everything. This receiver scans several frequencies to look not only for the NOAA satellite transmissions but also those from the Russian Meteor and Okean satellites.....continue

System 5

The final setup added a separate dish antenna and a separate receiver for reception of images from the Meteosat satellites at geostationary orbit. With the PROsat receiver, both the APT and GEO/WEFAX imaging could be controlled from the same PROsat for Windows program environment.....continue