Scanning with a Satellite

[Boort8720]

Hi All,

I have just acquired myself an old Austar Satellite. I was wondering what you could pick up with it, as well as what you could use with it (receivers etc.). I was just after some basic information such as the frequency range (being Austar), whether I can switch out the old coax on the satellite for some standard T.V coax and where to face it for the best results. Any help is very much appreciated.

Kind Regards,

[Phantom]

Why would you want to swap out the satellite coax?

[Boort8720]

It was extremely sun damaged. I did some digging and found the Austar dish installation manual. I replaced the old coax with brand new Rg6 quad shield, as per the manual's recommendations. I have pretty much answered my own questions, but would still like to know if anyone uses a satellite dish to pick up signals.

Kind Regards

[scannerman]

being a satellite dish id say frequency's 1300+mhz nothing much worth scanning up there

[geodementia]

being a satellite dish id say frequency's 1300+mhz nothing much worth scanning up there

Years ago I used to listen to aircraft comms via satellite. Airservices used to have analog scpc (single channel per carrier) transmissions to all the remote transmitter sites. Scanning 900-1000MHz would find these and other services coming from the Optus birds. This was after downconversion from the standard LNA so they would have been 13GHz or so originally.

I suspect these have gone digital by now so you may not find anything now, but worth a look.

[dags19]

being a satellite dish id say frequency's 1300+mhz nothing much worth scanning up there

Years ago I used to listen to aircraft comms via satellite. Airservices used to have analog scpc (single channel per carrier) transmissions to all the remote transmitter sites. Scanning 900-1000MHz would find these and other services coming from the Optus birds. This was after downconversion from the standard LNA so they would have been 13GHz or so originally.

I suspect these have gone digital by now so you may not find anything now, but worth a look.

yep give it a go you well never no whats out there mabey E.T"s LONG LOST COUSIN

[Boort8720]

Thanks for the input. I guess you wouldn't know until you've tried it. I'm not sure whether I need some sort of powered receiver, or whether I'm not facing it the right way. Maybe there's nothing to pick up, I wouldn't know. Nonetheless, thanks for the help.

Kind Regards,

[Bass Junkie]

You could try looking for satellite imagery

http://mdkenny.customer.netspace.net.au ... W.html#Him

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial ... te-images/

[Boort8720]

Hi all,

Is there any way to tune my satellite dish to an actual weather satellite and have the signal decoded and displayed as weather information on a screen? I'm nut sure whether the same thing is done at our local aerodrome, not sure why else they would have a satellite dish. Any help appreciated

Kind Regards,

[Blake]

Defiantly not my area of expertise, but...

Mainly in the us, lots of people build dishes/trackers etc. all connected to a computer.
They are pinging the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellites.
Now these satellites main operate Northern America, not many come our way.
Our main satellite source for imagery is the joint Japanese/Australian 'Himawari-8' satellite.
Now, i'm not sure about how it transfers imagery.
That said, I have hunted down some applicable documentation and links.

Acquiring aviation weather reports and forecasts from BOM:
https://www.recreationalflying.com/tuto ... ion13.html

And a link to a forum, with an Australian (Adelaide) bloke who has successfully got weather images from NOAA:
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthre ... lite_Image

The NOAA transmission protocol for weather imagery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic ... ansmission

Some BOM documentation about reading ARFORs, TAFs and METARS:
http://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/knowledge-centre/

Make it work with SDR:
http://websterling.com/tsro/apt/


There's some reading to get ya' going mate
Hope you persist and make something of it, because it would be wicked cool.
Cheers.

[Boort8720]

Thank you Blake. You have really put me onto some interesting information, and that is only at first glance!

[Blake]

No problems mate, here to help.

I've got family that work at BOM, and a couple of friends into Satellite/deep space radio stuff,
so I've picked up a bit of an interest from there.

[Boort8720]

Nice, I am definitely interested too

[Blake]

Aaaaaaand, I couldn't help myself
More links


A bit more info from an Aussie here:
http://forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthre ... mber=85872

A very nice, in-depth article on making it work with SDR:
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial ... te-images/

Nice database of current and archives Australian NOAA images:
http://australiasevereweather.com/links/ozsatpic.htm

An alternative SDR satellite decode - Meteor-M2 LRPT, not sure is applicable for Aus:
http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial ... s-rtl-sdr/

Decoding software:
http://www.wxtoimg.com/

Images from a bloke in Coonabarabran, NSW who is successfully deoding NOAA:
http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/~map/weather/



My thoughts would be, that you would need to put your dish on a tracking mechanism of some kind.
Most types of antennas for this sort of stuff tend to be circularly polarized, axial mode, turnstile antennas.
And more superior (but harder to build) are quadrifilar helix type antennas.

A very quite good NOAA archive of every image from 1974 to now is avalibe here:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gibbs/

And, tell a lie, apparently the Himawari-8 is tied in with NOAA?


So, there's some more light reading for ya'
And with that, goodnight blokes.

[Blake]

Well, here's something interesting:

http://www.popsci.com.au/space/noaas-sa ... hem,453838

On Friday, The Washington Post reportedly obtained a memo from within the Trump administration about proposed funding for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The memo outlined steep cuts to several divisions, including the elimination of the $73 million Sea Grant research program, cuts to climate research divisions, and more.