This station has relocated and is operating from a temporary antenna.
Recorded at Northampton UK by G6KIZ
Temporary Antenna - Tall QHA only.
R2ZX receiver
NOAA APT weather satellite images
Currently there are 4 NOAA APT weather satellites in operation the
latest being NOAA 19 launched on the 6th February 2009. In common with earlier
NOAA satellites it is initially transmitting one channel visible light and the
other near infrared for a short period. This allows the WXtoImg vegetation enhancement to be used
but also means night time passes are black. Unfortunately the Keplers being issued
are inaccurate leading to the map overlay being offset but this will doubtless be
corrected in time.
All the satellites are in approximately circular polar orbits at around 850km altitude
and transmit 10w RF in the 137-138MHz band which makes them relatively easy to receive with a simple antenna. The main problem with
reception in the UK is the staggeringly stupid decision to allow text pagers to operate in the same band. Pager interference will
be seen on most of the pictures as short dark lines where a pager signal wiped out the satellite.
The demodulated signal is processed through a normal PC soundcard and the two greyscale images at different infrared wavelengths combined
to produced the false colour images displayed below.
The MCIR-precip composite images give a good idea of where there is likely to be rain by use of bright false colouring.
Looking at two images recorded a few hours apart can usually show the probable path the rain will follow. Note though that the
colours are only an indication of possible rain not that rain is actually reaching the ground.
Feel free to download any images for your own purposes - they can make attractive desktop wallpapers for instance.
