Subject: NOAA SATELLITES       1/4

  Subj: Noaa/meteor SAT'S


As per earlier discussion, here's the DRIG BBS bulletin on setting
up a weather satellite receiving station.

         RECEIVING WEATHER SATELLITE IMAGERY: A BEGINNER'S PRIMER
         --------------------------------------------------------

         Courtesy Dallas Remote Imaging Group
         Datalink RBBS ============> 214-394-7438

         Dedicated to satellite tracking, decoding of NOAA/Soviet
         meteorological satellite telemetry, and Digital Image
         Processing of satellite pictures.

         Jeff Wallach,      N5ITU, Chairman

         John Williams,            Co-Chairman
         John DuBois,       W1HDX, VAS/HRPT Design Engineer
         T S  Kelso,               Air Force/NASA liaison
         Ed O'Grady,               Soviet Space Program Analyst
         Mark Sims,                Director Software Development

         All aspects of Amateur Radio covered on Datalink RBBS

 (IF YOU COPY THIS BULLETIN FOR OTHER SYSTEMS, PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH
  TO LEAVE  THIS BANNER  AS DUE CREDIT TO THE HARD-WORKING FOLKS WHO
  DEVELOPED AND CONTINUALLY UPDATE THIS INFORMATIVE 'HOW-TO'BULLETIN)

                                                Dayton HamVention  '91
                                                              (rev 14)

Tom  Gentry, K5VOU,  has  been  kind  enough  to  help  us prepare the
following:

        HOW TO RECEIVE APT PICTURES FROM THE NOAA SATELLITES
        ----------------------------------------------------

So  you  have  decided you want to receive the NOAA and Russian METEOR
orbiters and  you  have  a  radio  that  receives  137.500  MHz and a
computer.  So now what do you do? I hope this short dissertation will
steer you in the correct direction.

To display a picture from the orbiting birds you need several things.
First you  need  to  'acquire' the satellite. This means you need the
program to calculate its position at any time and determine if you can
hear the signals from the 'bird'. The best place to get this program is
probably AMSAT-NA an organization dedicated to AMateur SATellites. They
have several very good tracking programs for the IBM and also for
Commodore and Apple as well.

After you have acquired the program and have it running on your computer,
you then need the Keplerian Elements for  the  NOAA  satellites.  These
elements as well as some tracking programs  are  available from the
CELESTIAL RCP/M, run by TS Kelso, at 513-427-0674 (Fairborn,OH) and from
the Weather Fax and Remote Imaging DATALINK BBS run by Dr. Jeff Wallach,
N5ITU as bulletins for some 100+ sets of satellite data.  Another
bulletin also tells you to what the printed numbers correspond so you
can enter them into the computer program.  Use the newest elements you
can find as the orbiting satellites are subjectto forces which change
their orbits. If you use Keplerian Elements more than 3 or 4 weeks old,
your chances of hearing the bird are reduced.

Once you are tracking the birds you should hear them on your receiver.
They will be on 137.62(NOAA-9/11), 137.500(NOAA-10), and on 137.850,
137.400, and 137.300 for Soviet Meteorological Satellites/METEOR.
The Chinese satellite Feng Yun transmits  on  137.795 when it is
operational.  Now comes the first thing different about NOAA orbiters.
The frequency deviation of the FM transmission is about +/-18-20 kHz.
This is 4 times the normal deviation of a police call and 1/3 the
deviation of the FM broadcast band FM signal. If you receive the signal
on  the  regular communications width of the scanner the light areas
of the picture will be noisy and the signal will sound
distorted and the picture will basically be useless. If you use the FM
broadcast bandwidth  (assuming  your  scanner  will let you), the signal
will be weak and there may be too much background noise to see the
picture.

So  what  now ?   Well  there  are two ways to fix the problem, find a
receiver with  the  proper I.F. bandwidth filter of 50 kHz, or modify
the  I.F.  of your scanner to about 50-80 kHz. The simplest mod which
has  been  found to be workable is to remove the narrow communications
I.F.  filter  and  replace it with a 0.01 uFd capacitor. This provides
for  good  Wefax  pictures  from  GOES and  pretty  fair NOAA orbiter
pictures  -  see  March  1991,  '73 Amateur Radio Today' article for a
description of this procedure. It can of course result in retuning the
radio,  voiding the warranty and making the squelch not work properly.

The  other  characteristic of the NOAA satellite transmissions is
THEY ARE WEAK.  To  get  good  pictures  over a large area we have
found a pre-amplifier to  be  essential. A GaAs-FET type can be
obtained from various sources at a reasonable price but still about
50-100 dollars. You can  also build one for about 25 dollars from
plans for a pre-amp for the 2-meter amateur band and tune it to
137.5 easily.

Lastly,  but  importantly,  the antenna can be of an omni directional,
uniform pattern type such as a turnstile antenna similar to those
used in  the  FM broadcast reception business but of course tuned
to 137.5 on  broomsticks  have been  known to work, and it is not
difficult to build the antenna. Of course 2-meter beams with Az/El
tracking will do the job well.

Now that you have a nice audio signal from the satellite, what happens
next?  The audio tone of 2400 HZ which is the carrier tone that is
used to  carry the picture  information (video), must be detected
and the video  data converted from analog to digital and then
displayed on the computer monitor by the software. The hardware
and software to do this is  available  from  several
sources  with more coming along. Several stand-alone  boxes  are  also
available  that  produce  some  form of computer  output either in
printed form or on the display. In addition the  people  on the
DATALINK BBS may also have some data to share with you regarding
this equipment.

One  of  the  best  sources  for  information is the WEATHER SATELLITE
HANDBOOK by  Dr. Ralph Taggart. The 4th edition is now available
from the ARRL. A must is THE JOURNAL OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE
AMATEUR USERS'  GROUP - JESAUG - which is published quarterly. It is
available for  $30.00  per  year  from the editor, Jeff Wallach,
PO Box 117088 Carrollton,  TX.  75011-7088.  Back issues  of  the
JESAUG  are also available.

One  good  place  to start is with the Elmer Schwittek MULTIFAX or the
MULTIFAX MAP  software  which  runs on  the IBM PC.  The PC interface
hardware  is available  as printed circuit board alone, board and
all parts,  or completely assembled.  Additional image processing
software is available online DATALINK.

The  units  available from David Schwittek, Ralph Taggart, Jerry
Dahl, GTI Electronics and Quorum communications listed under Sources
are all well worth investigating if you are just getting started.

You  can  obtain  directly  from  DATALINK  the MULTIFAX MAP interface
hardware designed by Jim Bartlett and David Schwittek.

                     'Typical' APT Receiving Station
                     -------------------------------
        [1]   ANTENNA
                 -
        [2]   PRE-AMP
                 -
                 -
                 -
                 -                          [ STAND ALONE UNITS ]
                 -
        [3]   RECEIVER  ----------------->  FAX MACHINE  ---> PAPER
                 -                          WRASSE UNIT  ---> MONITOR
                 -                          YU3UMV UNIT  ---> MONITOR
                 - - - - VCR
                 -
                 -
                 -
        [4] - VIDEO DETECTOR   -
            -                  -
            -                  -
        [5] - ANALOG/DIGITAL   -
            -                  -
            -                  -            [ SCAN CONVERTERS ]
            -                  -
        [6] - INTERFACE TO PC  - <=======>  ROBOT 1200
            -                  -            TAGGART'S 1700
            -                  -            IMAGEWISE
            -                  -
        [7] -    SOFTWARE      -            ** SECOND DISPLAY **
            -                  -               for weather images
            -                  -
            -                  -
        [8] - GRAPHICS ADAPTOR -
                 -
                 -
                 -
                 -
        [9]   PC DISPLAY / MONITOR

                 Display weather images
                 (or commands for SCAN CONVERTERS)
                 -
                 -
       [10]   PC PRINTER / DOT MATRIX / LASER

       NOTES:
       ------

              [4] VIDEO DETECTOR, [5] ANALOG/DIGITAL CONVERTER, and
              [6] INTERFACE TO PC may be in separate hardware units
              or all on one circuit board.

Sources:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOAA Data / Keplerian Elements:

DATALINK RBBS, N5ITU, Dr. Jeff Wallach, 214-394-7438,
 DALLAS REMOTE IMAGING GROUP ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARD
 UPDATES ON NOAA BULLETINS, SATELLITE LAUNCHES, FREQUENCIES
 DISPLAY PICTURES FROM NOAA SATELLITES ON YOUR OWN P.C.

CELESTIAL RCP/M, TS Kelso, 513-427-0674, NASA Prediction Bulletins
 are online and updated several times weekly Canadian Space Society BBS,
416-458-5907,  2-Line Elements  maintained    |
 by Ted Molczan of 600+ satellite - Visual satellite tracking info |

Satellite Tracking Software:

AMSAT-NA,  PO  Box  27, Washington, DC 20044, Software Exchange,
 phone 301-589-6062 (voice), N4HY - QUIKTRAK, W0SL - ORBITS II,III,IV,
 and InstantTrack by Franklin Antonio.
Roy D. Welch, W0SL, 908 Dutch Mill Drive, Manchester, MO 63011,
 phone 314-391-1127, ORBITS II-CGA, ORBITS III-EGA, ORBITS IV-VGA
 DATALINK BBS, download PASSCHED.ZIP, SEESATxx.ARC, TRKSAT.xxx and
 others CELESTIAL RCP/M, TS Kelso, 513-427-0674, PASSCHED.ZIP or
SEESATxx.ARC Astronomical Data Service, Rodger Mansfield, 3922
Leisure Lane, Colorado Springs, CO 80917-SPACE BIRDS program and
Newsletter, $40. Paul E. Traufler, 111 Emerald Drive,
Harvest,AL 35749-TRAKSAT Satellite

 Tracking program-Non - Registered $10.00, Registered Version $25.00.
Bill Bard, 1732 74th Circle NE, St Petersburg, FL 33702, MACSAT
tracking program for the Apple Macintosh - $10.00 for disk and manual.
RPV Astronomy BBS, Dave Ransom, 213-541-7299, STSORBIT Tracking program
and latest version of TRAKSAT and NASA Prediction Bulletins online.

Receivers:

Vanguard Labs, 196-23 Jamaica, Hollis, NY 11423,
 phone 718-468-2720, BBS Dataline 718-740-3911 Hamtroincs, Inc.,65-D Moul
 Road, Hilton, NY 14468-9535 phone 716-392-9430
DARTCOMM, Mr. N. Hearn, DARTCOMM Ferndale, Postbridge, Yelverton,
 Devon PL20 6SY, Great Britain, UK, phone 011 44 0822 88253 Quorum
Communications, 8304 Esters Rd. Suite 850, Irving, TX 75063,
 phone 214-915-0256, FAX 214-915-0270
Scanner Modification, See March, 1991 '73 Amateur Radio' Magazine for
 'Weather Satellite Reception' article by John E. Hoot, page 12.

Crystals:

JAN  Crystals,  2400  Crystal  Dr,  Fort  Myers,  FL 33906-6017,
 phone 1-800-237-3063 or 813-936-2397

Pre-Amps:

Quorum Communications, 8304 ESTERS RD. Suite 850 Irving, TX 75063
Spectrum

International,Inc.,  Box  1084,  Concord  MA  01742,
 phone 508-263-2145
Vanguard Labs, Hamtronics and GLB for Helical RF Filters for intermod
Ehrler-DuBois Very High Performance LNA for 1500-1750 Mhz, contact Greg
Ehrler or John DuBois via DATALINK

Antennas:

ARRL Handbook, 1986, turnstile over ground antenna. ARRL Satellite
Experimenter's Handbook by Martin Davidoff, K2UBC Modern Electronics,
September 1988, Hank Brandli article, page 82,
 Receiving Satellite Weather Photos

Hardware Interface to PC:

A&A  Engineering,  2521  W. La Palma, Unit K, Anaheim, CA 92801,
 phone 714-952-2114 - both AM dectector and A/D converter, input to PC
 via game port (4-bits) or parallel I/O Interface (8-bits) - kit is
 $50. - assembled and tested unit is $70. Microcomm,  H. Paul Shuch, N6TX,
14908 Sandy Lane, San Jose, CA 95124, phone 408-377-6137
- FAXBOARD - A Weather Facsimile Display Board for
 the  IBM  PC  -  Complete  documentation  to build your own interface
 circuit  on  an  IBM  PC  prototyping  board - video and an 8-bit A/D
 interface - $6.00, also in QEX, Sep '88.

Video Detectors:

RTM  Circuit  Boards,  205  Elm  St.,Van  Horne, IA  52346-0400,
 video detector  (the 'Wilson Board')  see QST Magazine, Jan '86 and
 Vince Coppola's  article in Oct 1988  73 Magazine QST Magazine, August
1985,
Grant Zehr article, page 27, video detector
 circuit

A/D Converter & Parallel I/O Interfaces for the IBM PC:

MetraByte,  440  Myles Standish Blvd., Taunton, MA 02780, Model PIO-12
 board for the IBM PC, phone 617-880-3000 John  Bell  Engineering, Inc, 400
Oxford Way, Beimont, CA 94002,
 phone 415-592-8411

Sources:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Display Software and Hardware - 'Amateur':

Multifax,  David  Schwittek,  1659 Waterford Road, Walworth, NY 14568,
 phone  315-986-2719, Multifax 5.x and 4.x for VGA, 3.x for EGA on the
 IBM-PC. This is the original 16 color system, see Multifax MFMAP. Clay
Abrams Software, 1758 Comstock Lane, San Jose, CA 95124, software
 for the ROBOT 1200 - see QST Magazine, Jan '86 Ralph  Taggart,  602  S.
Jefferson, Mason, MI 48854, Weather Satellite Handbook  Scan  Converter
- New Model 1700 APT Scan Converter for the
 the  IBM PC. Order Handbook from the ARRL, Scan Converter from Metsat
 Products,  1257  Glen  Meadows  Ln,  East  Lansing  MI,  48823, phone
 517-332-7665.   Also   see   73   Magazine,  Nov  '84  and  Dec  '84,
 WSH/Handbook,  and  WEATHERSAT  columns  in 73 Magazine from 1987 and
 1988.  Weather Satellite Handbook BBS, 517-676-0368, Ralph Taggart.
ImageWise  Display/Receiver,  Circuit  Cellar Inc.  -  Micromint Inc.,
 4 Park Street,  Vernon, CT 06066, phone 203-875-2751 - BYTE Magazine,
 May,  Jun,  Jul,  Aug 1987. JESAUG 88-2 and Oct 1988 73 Magazine have
 information  on  how  to  build  the video and A/D interface. Ver 2.0
 software  supports  VGA  graphics and 640 samples per line at 64 gray
 levels.  With  VGA  the  ImageWise  Display unit is not required. The
 software  is  available for $29.95 from Vince Coppola, N1VC, 6 Bobbin
 Road, Terryville, CT 06786
ASAT:  An Apple-based Satellite Imaging System by Grant Zehr, WA9TFB -
 QEX  Magazine,  March  '88  -  has  complete  information to build an
 excellent  unit  using  the  APPLE  with a Redshift Ltd graphics card
 giving 256 * 256 pixels at a full 256 levels of gray.

AMIGA Imaging Software - Dallas Remote Imaging Group
                         PO Box 117088
                         Carrollton, TX 75011-7088
                         Voice 214 394 7325
 Uses standard Amiga hardware - no special display
 Powerful NASA digital enhancement curves built-in
 Digital image processing capabilities
 Uses A&A Engineering $49 demodulator
 Image saved for use by other graphics programs
 Full histogram analysis
 Full 8 bit data is stored on diskette or hard disk
 Unattended operation
 Can be setup in 30 minutes
 Call for special pricing

Multifax MFMAP, Elmer and David Schwittek, 1659 Waterford Road,
 Walworth, NY 14568, phone 315-986-2719. MFMAP software for the IBM PC
 and  the  Jim Bartlett/David Schwittek/DATALINK  interface  card  for
 APT/GOES/FAX.  This  is  a fully functional 8 -bit / 256 color system
 with image data captured directly to disk at 4800 or 3600 samples per
 second.  Additional software is available online DATALINK and Kelso's


Satellite Meteorology:

Satellite  Imagery  Interpretation  for Forecasters  -  a 3 volume set
 published  in  1985  for NOAA now available from the National Weather
 Association,  4400  Stamp  Road,  Room  404,  Temple Hills, MD 20748,
 301-899-3784,  $32  for  members, $45 for non-members ( Membership is
 $20. )

Bibliography - Online DATALINK Bulletins:   (214 394 7438 -- BBS)

NASA Satellite Prediction Bulletins, NASA-PB.xxx How to use NASA 2-Line
Keplerian Elements AMSAT Bulletins and Weekly Notes / Orbital Elements
NOAA APT NOTES NOAA User Bibliography Summary of Soviet Meteorological
Satellites by Grant Zehr How to Build a Weather Satellite Groundstation
(This Primer) Wrasse Dedicated System Review GOES VAS Imaging System
for the IBM PC, John DuBois W1HDX LNA for WEFAX-VAS-HRPT-GPS, John
Dubois and Greg Ehrler GOES I-M Conference Summary Ralph Taggart's New
APT Scan Converter and Book Dartcom 137-138 Synthesized Receiver
Packaging, John DuBois Amateur Radio News from Newsline, Bill
Pasternack How to VISUALLY OBSERVE the Space Shuttle, Ted
Molczan AMSAT InstantTrack V1.00 program description, Franklin Antonio

Review DATALINK RBBS bulletins for current information ====> 214 394-7438


DALLAS REMOTE IMAGING GROUP - DRIG  Voice: 214 394-7325
                                     Data: 214 394-7438 P.O. Box 117088

             FAX : 214-492-7747 Carrollton, TX 75011-7088 ATTENTION:
             Jeff Wallach, Chairman