Decoding NOAA APT Weather Images - A quick how to guide

[blantonl]

I wrote a blog post today on decoding NOAA APT Weather Satellite Photos:

http://radioreference.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Lindsay

 

[jb872033]

thanks for the post...i have been using wxtoimg without any trouble, but this program looks a bit more user friendly, i think ill give it a try for a while! thanks for the link


JB

 

[jb872033]

not sure what the issue is here or who is right, but it seems that WXTOIMG and APTDECODER cant agree on when satellites are going to pass over my location! right now according to aptdecoder i am waiting on noaa 17 which will pass over my location at 18:75 EST, however wxtoimg doesnt see this...it says 21:57 EST...a lil confusing...i updated keeplers and pass lists both from spacetrack.org on which i am registered, at the same time and everything but i cant get the programs to agree on pass times...i updated the time on both machines i am using to record theese...(diffrent programs on diffrent computers) so its not that...although i did notice that wxtoimg rounds your lat/long to three digits past the decimal (.xxx) where as apt decoder takes the whole thing (.xxxxx~), but this still doesnt explain the 3 hour diffrence 10 minutes i could see...i understand that theese satelites pass ~3hrs but why whould the pass times on the SAME satellite not be the same for each program? pictures below...APT is in EST and WXTOIMG is in UTC...any input would be appreciated...im gonna let them both run and see what happens, but if anyone has any bright ideas that im missing feel free to slap me in the head and let me know!! thanks

JB

PS im an idiot...figured it out!! sorry for wasting anyones time, but ill leave this up for people who cant read like me!! thats the one after the current pass which makes sense...and closest pass is on the top of the screen, but still wxtoimg doesnt have this pass listed

JB

 

[rdale]

Your timezone is wrong - here in America we are on Daylight Saving Time, so you want EDT not EST.

 

[bodnarp]

Help

I live in Michigan and all I am getting is the "snow" for a picture. What can I do to clear it up to see the pics?

 

[yn0t]

Check out: http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109122.

We are currently discussing this topic on how to clear up the signal. Usually it comes down to needing a better antenna.

 

[jb872033]

some of it is the antenna but if you are using a scanner there is not quite enough bandwith to get a perfect picture...if i am not mistaken, it is recomended that you used 30khz bandwith and most scanners arent selectable, however as i think is mentioned in the blog post, some icom recievers can select bandwithl...

JB

 

[scannerrail]

Wow I started a whole new trend

Anyways when I first brought up the NOAA APT here a little over a year ago I tried with my own scanner however I plugged into the discriminator tap and what I found out was if the 3.5mm cable touched the jack at all it killed the sound of the APT..

so I can try the headphone jack but I don't know if I will have high hopes for that.. My view of the Sat is so narrow it passes over within under a min for some passes.

 

[bodnarp]

will an icom r75 work

 

[jb872033]

No that seems to only go up to 60.00mhz, theese sattelittes tX on in the 137.XXX range, so you need a reciever capable of reciving VHF-hi as well...

JB

 

[jb872033]

Just wanted to plug the APT some more! These images, while it might seem low quality, but this was done with an old uniden bc60-xlt1 and a hustler DCL antenna and wxtoimg. I was just impressed at the quality so i thoughd id post...

JB

 

[poltergeisty]

Look at all that snow leaving the east coast... :twisted:

 

[jb872033]

hahah yeah i thought that was a sweet pic. I wanted people to kinda see that you can do with with the stuff you already have...in decent quality