Listening to Weather Satellites with Random Junk
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- Опубликовано: 26 янв 2021
- Listening to NOAA weather satellites as they pass overhead is relatively simple! All you need are some bits of wire and a basic radio. Actually getting imagery decoded from the transmissions took a little more effort, as I learned in the process of making this video. Below are some of the resources and guides I found helpful for this project:
Basic intro to satellite reception: publiclab.org/notes/sashae/06...
The antenna design I used: lna4all.blogspot.com/2017/02/...
Website for tracking satellites and determining upcoming overhead passes (As of early 2021, the ones to watch are NOAA 18, 19, and 15): www.n2yo.com/
Info on the NanoVNA I used for antenna tuning: • #480 NANOVNA Made Simple
This is a decent Software Defined Radio that's capable of hearing these satellites. You can get them with or without lots of extras like antennas and amplifiers: www.rtl-sdr.com/buy-rtl-sdr-d...
The software I used to interface with the SDR and record audio files (for Linux / Raspberry Pi): gqrx.dk/
(I have heard SDR# is good for Windows, but have not tried it: airspy.com/download/)
The software I used for decoding images: wxtoimgrestored.xyz/
Some "gotchas" I ran into when working with saved audio files (not always obvious from online guides):
-WXtoIMG is ancient abandonware and barely works on modern computers. The Linux version has some display issues and freezes when trying to update Keplers, at least on my system. On Windows I found that the beta version works better, the "stable" release won't install at all). It also doesn't like modern sound drivers, so if you can't decode live signals you may have to record and decode later (see below for even more tricks with this!)
-Gqrx saves recordings in stereo at the wrong sample rate. You'll need to open the saved audio file in Audacity (or some other audio editor), collapse the file to mono and change the sample rate to 11025. You'll probably also want to Normalize the file after each step. See here for more details: lucasteske.dev/2016/02/record...
-WXtoIMG It is very finicky about date/time stamps and you may need to fiddle around a lot to get your recording to match a known satellite pass. I had no luck using the filename to specify recording time as the faq recommends. I had to download a file attribute editor (Or this software can change timestamps: noaa-apt.mbernardi.com.ar/ ). You need to change the "Modified" date and time (not the "created" attribute) to the time when the recording started (because once you process the file through Audacity, the timestamp will be different). I then had to manually adjust the map overlay in WXtoIMG (fortunately I had a visible reference point, if it's all clouds you might be out of luck!) See wxtoimgrestored.xyz/faq/ for some info on this.
Hopefully all that helps! There are a lot of guides online for how to do this, some are more complete than others. There are problably also plenty of videos better at explaining this than mine, I was just trying everything out for the first time. 
Наука
For everyone asking how I soldered aluminum... I have no idea. I think I just globbed enough on there that it kind of had a good-enough-ish electrical connection. I didn't use that antenna very long, I've gone through a couple designs and am currently using a QFH based on this: usradioguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/20200307-How-To-Build-A-QFH.pdf
Good educational content .. I just was wondering why you are only able to receive weather balloons satellites and not any other space satellites?
@@TheIsmaelIsaac it was not a weather balloon. They do not fly in predictable paths that you can look up Online.
@thettguy
Oh I see thank you for clearing this out for me. But still, why can't you receive signals from the geostationary satellites? Like the ones boardcast international news or any else?
@@TheIsmaelIsaac I have some other videos on geostationary satellites, those need bigger dish antennas since they're farther away.
@saveitforparts Awesome 👌
I will scroll down the thumbnail to watch and enjoy. Thanks a lot
Being able to interact with highly expensive technology such as a satellite with only $50 is so COOL!
and less than legal 😂
@@832738 How is it illegal? As long as you yourself aren't EMITTING any signals, it should be fine to just listen.
@@shadowbladez2457 just an assumption.
@@832738 It's perfectly legal.
@@832738 It's an open broadcast. It's not some encrypted military satellite and he isn't "hacking" into it. From a legal standpoint this is no different than getting in a car and turning the radio on. It's also a weather satellite and you can go online and see what he got with better quality lol easiest way to think of it is downloading the images without internet.
Nice to see a guy who actually likes what he's doing on the internet
Yeah, I love to see more of this happening tbvh.
His face on 4:51 when he first Hears the satalite made my day❤
I'm amazed you managed to solder to aluminum at all.
I wouldn't say it's a *good* solder connection, more of a massive blob. I also cheated and used a butane torch on part of it, hence some of the charred areas :-P
I noticed that as well and had to skip back to where he got the rod to verify I didn't misheard it. Impressive that this worked at all, we had to get around it but it involved plasma cleaning and sputtering, the "just torch it"-approach sounds way easier and less time consuming!
@@saveitforparts That's because you can't really solder aluminum due to the oxide layer. With aluminum it's especially bad. Maybe try out some copper pipe if you have some lying around.
Additionally, aluminum is a good conductor of heat so you need a lot of heat.
@@derkeksinator17 tap and screw? Less time...
This is 2 years old but now suddenly showing up in everyones recommendations apparantly. But this is actually a youtuber who deserves blowing up. RUclips algorithm doing a good thing supporting actually good and creative newcomer RUclipsrs for once.
For anyone reading, if you buy that Baofeng radio, you can actually listen to ISS when it's passing by. Even with the default antenna that comes with it. It's pretty neat looking above to see the ISS flying by, and listening to the radio chat between someone who has powerful radio and the ISS.
Great video by the way!
btw, dont try to talk to them or they will change frequency, and you will be alone, again.
@@nikostalk5730 wait fr?
Wow you are delusional.
Which model radio is that? I am always watching the ISS and would be neat to actually listen as it passes over.
@@WA4NDR yeah I used UV-5R to listen to the ISS. Its not optimal but you can still hear it.
Watching the doppler shift in real time was amazing. Has helped recapture some of the wonder eroded by 4 years of electrical engineering school. Great video!
Getting an image from a radio/audio frequency transmitted from a satellite is just super cool. So much technology being used together for an end result.
"A sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic!"
this is epic level nerdery. you sir, deserve widespread recognition!
Yeah same here
I dont know what to say exactly.. but... that was awesome. Especially considering you didn't have prior knowledge and just figured it out. 2 thumbs up. idk how you only have 62k followers but i can see that changing. This video alone should have millions and millions of views.
The "Weather Satellite Handbook" is a self-published book by Michigan State paleobotanist and radio amateur Dr. Ralph E. Taggart which goes into great detail about how to build receivers and even spark printers for weather satellites.
tbh, I just clicked on this video because it sounded like some nice geeky shenanigans and that's what I figured it was after having watched the first couple of minutes. However, seeing the actual satelite image you've captured in all its grainy glory....I kinda got a little emotional. It's just so cool that this technology exists. Now I'm not versed in any of this at all, but I do appreciate some tinkering to get stuff to work. And this is one magnificent example.
This is the guy in the movie that saves everyone because of his obscure and extensive knowledge on things normal plebs never think about. Thank you for your service and since you doxxed yourself, I now know where to go when the apocalypse begins.
One thing to note - when using your SDR you should use a USB extension cable to reduce noise caused by plugging it directly into your laptop. It could have raised the noise floor above the signal strength.
Wouldn't the hub at the end introduce noise as well? Passive extension cables are noncompliant and shouldn't be used (though in practice they're all over the place, sigh)
@@keiyakins I have a zigbee dongle for some automation stuff and it works best with a exenstion cable tbh
@@keiyakins It's true that passive extensions are not supported by the USB spec, but you have a situation here where the peripheral was designed somewhat lazily to have a built in type A when it really should have had a type B or C jack to support being at the end of the cable. Sometimes you have to use non-compliant cables in order to make stupidly designed devices work. E.g. I have a logic analyzer that works great except it has a type A receptacle on a device port, so you have to plug it in with an A to A cable.
Good idea thanks
u could try some toroidal ferrite chokes and wind the cable around them each end we do that to dampen noise on some cables in lab work cheap but an upmast preamp (dc powered via the radio cable) is better as it can site the antenna a few metera away from the niosy stuff
In a modern world where most people buy it, use it, then throw it away, I LOVE how you researched and made your own antenna, tested along the way, figured out what was not working, and persevered to a successful finish! The best part was when you said that when you started the project, you didn't know how to do what you were doing - but you stuck with it. Now THAT's learning! Great job - and a fun project!!
Thanks! There are a lot of projects where I don't know what I'm doing when I start. Sometimes I don't at the end either, but it kind of works anyway :-)
Very cool, at the end I was blown away when you could actually decode the signal and see the image.
Content like this remind of old RUclips.
That little antenna mount is absolute genius
The fact you got solder to stick to aluminum is pretty impressive not easy to do
You have to get through the oxide layer. It helps greatly if the surface is plated with another metal.
Лимонная кислота часто помогает паять что угодно к чему угодно, главное нагреть до плавления
This is extremely cool. I am blown away that you were able to extract a weather image. Truly amazing.
Found your chan a week ago . Love it, junk built from junk . And you can not fail unless you trying something , then it becomes a learning experience. And subscribers learn from your experiences .
This is amazing! I’m thoroughly impressed. I can’t imagine the excitement you must have felt when finally getting that image decoded.
This guy will be invaluable to my zombie apocalypse survivor colony.
For whatever reason these popped into my recommended vids and I’m not disappointed.
Love your format - seeing the trial and error process is much more rewarding than a highly produced and streamlined video. Weirdly enough I the important stuff easier to remember, like the hoops you had to jump through to get a useable image from the data. Great stuff, subbed!
I loved this video, very much in the spirit of radio experimentation! Never be ashamed of your prototypes, if it works it’s not ugly!
Wow! You did it! When you decoded that image I felt so happy for you. That's pretty cool and something not everyone knows how to do (but should). Rock-on, brother!
This is amazing. Really appreciate how you kept going on despite failures. You are an inspiration.
Your a very intelligent dude, you put everything in layman’s terms but you are on a different level, really enjoy your videos
So cool that you caught the Doppler shift on camera right there! I would love to see you design some thing using a Doppler shift that really illustrates the principles at work there (and maybe even mingling with the vice principles).
Just drive past a church as the bells are ringing, with your car window and you'll get a good doppler shift example... 😏
😎👍☘️🍺
Dude. You truly need to have that image professionally printed in large format and have it framed. Very cool.
I get your idea but a large print would look like trash with that quality lol.
@@Frobblor maybe it'd illustrate that the image was transmitted via many, many signals. I'm an artist and don't know shit about Radio but I'd frame and hang this
This is the best thing youtube has ever recommended to me
This is what I love from people like you. No bullsh*tting, real about what you do and don't accomplish and full info about what you did.
Quite impressive...👍 I couldn't have done that myself and your Raspberry Pi tricorder box is the bees knees...!
This was excellent, really liked when all the fields you science'd came together to create an image at the end.
“I’m in a hurry because I’m lazy” has to be one of my favourite sentences I’ve ever heard. If you don’t mind i would like to steal it
Ha, go for it! A lot of my projects go that way!
I’m jealous of how organized your garage is. I seriously took a screenshot of your pegboard setup so I can duplicate on my end.
Most of the pegboard was in there when I bought the place. Former owner even had an entire closet made of pegboard in the basement! Also the middle of the garage is a giant pile, only the edges are sometimes organized 😅
That's pretty cool! I was amazed to see such a clear picture come from radio data.
I especially appreciate how you have your tools arranged on the wall. Great!
Very cool, brings back memories, I was the Quality Engineer for NOAA 18 at Lockheed in Sunnyvale, CA. And I actually have a scrapped APT transmitter box from the NOAA 19 accident! Those were the days ......
That's awesome! I currently have an automated setup grabbing each pass, with a better antenna. I'm hoping these keep operating for a while, they're a very cool resource.
@@saveitforparts they were contracted to operate for around 3 years, it's amazing they're still going :)
This type of project should be used as a senior design project in electrical engineering! Nice work!
Simple and straight to the results. Bravo!
This is super impressive! I'm definetly subscribing for more of this.
I'm already inspired to make stuff myself
Dude seriously, great video! Well spoken and concise. Not to mention the audio and video quality was awesome. Thank you.
This is probably one of the most genuine youtube hack videos I've encountered! Excellent work dude!
Yay! I understand vaguely whats going on here!
Radio always has amazed me. There are so many disciplines and understandings and concepts contingent on to pull that image off the weather sat on display here. 😮
Very neato.
Besides RF gain, NF [Noise Figure] is a big factor in the first receiving stage. Lower is better. To solder correctly, the joint must be clean. Use flux, tin the tip, wipe off, tin again, HEAT THE JOINT, add solder to transfer more heat if necessary, Apply solder OPPOSITE the heat source. Solder will flow toward the heat. When the joint is molten, remove the heat. Clean the joint of flux. Done.
Had absolutely no idea what you were talking about but this is still one of the coolest videos I've seen on here 🗼🗼
So you inspired me over a bunch of videos to get into RTD-SDR. Guess what.. My nooelec v5 dongle arrived today and I just had to try it out as it was a warm clear evening, despite not having any antenna gear. Well I looked in my shed and found an old bunny rabbit antenna. I did some dodgy stuff but essentially cut and wrapped some tv coaxial around the SDR dongle and gaffer-taped it there.. I vertically mounted the V-dipole under a brick in the gutter and hoped it would be ok, then Ran 5m of TV coaxial to my bedroom, plugged it in. After 20 minutes of learning SDR++, by chance I was scrolling past the polar orbit band and there was a spike on SDR. I clicked on it and I found my first satellite! OKEAN 3 :) Thank you for sparking a new interest. I appreciate it!
Very cool!
Very cool! I like how you keep at it and learn from mistakes.
Last night I caught NOAA19 over my house using my brand new Baofeng UV5R radio, thanks to this video. Can't wait to hear ISS when I get the chance!
I recently bought a Baofeng UV5R, The next day I ran across this video. Tracked NOAA 18, went outside and captured my fist weather image. Not very good, but I got an image. Thank you for this information. I am now going down this rabbit hole!
Very cool, I remember playing around with this about a decade ago when the RTL-SDRs first became available.
That is so cool you got that image! very fascinating.
Dude, I love you man! Your videos are too chill!
Best accomplishment in a video I’ve seen in a while. Really cool! Congratulations! Well done!
As a weather geek, this was MINDBLOWINGLY cool!!!
Enjoyed this. Great to see someone making homebrew antennas 👍🏼
I might see how this idea works with Satcom. Been using a 3 element Yagi made from coat hangers and it’s quite effective.
Humble and honest. Props to you!
Outstanding Bro... You are the Guy we all wish lived next door.
As someone that absolutely refuses to throw out anything I can fix/reuse down the line, I love this and had to subscribe. I'll never be as creative as you but damn it I respect a man that can make something from anything. True talent!
Oh wow... this gave me the same buzz the early Mark Rober stuff did, like the snowball launcher for example. Really cool journey, did not expect it to be this easy!
Dude, that is so freakin' cool! I didn't remotely follow all the radio jargon, but that you can cobble something together with spare parts to download image data off a NOAA weather satellite is amazing!
Absolutely great
Thanks for taking the time to make the video and share it.
Love the view from space. This could save somebody's life.
"Some may call this junk, me, i call them treasures..."
i just bought that ham radio model, i can not wait to start tinkering when i get it. thanks bro this was brilliant
My father and I did this back in the 80's with a scratch built receiver for NOAA/METEOR Sats with similar software on a 486 PC. No SDR back in the day! PS: Reception is better if you lay a reflector grid out some hardware cloth underneath the dipole antenna.
Looks like a radio electronics & pc programming genius to me. Very resourceful 👍
dude im starting to love this channel especially since ive always been a big antenna head this stuff intrigues me quite a bit! also dunno if you have ever heard this but you have a resemblance to a uxwbill and hes is quite a jolly old fella, i swear you guys would get along great lol, keep up the good work!
The Amish are VERY annoyed...🤜🖕🤛
Very KLF, excellent. Love how you dropped it down into the minor key for extra spookiness!
Uh this is really embarrassing but i commented on the wrong video 🤦♂️
They way you calmly thought it through with a smile✌was impressive.
Off camera smashes $35 box😎
I have no clue about ham radio, antennas, or satellites, but I still think this is really cool!
I need someone like you in my neighborhood. You know, to keep things interesting.
Dude, you’re my hero. Very resourceful!
The SDR you need to adjust the frequency. There is an adjustment in the software that you have to either add or subtract depending on how far off it is on the cheaper sdrs it could be anywhere from single digits all the way up to around 75 negative or positive
The really good ones the PPM is less than 1 so those you don't have to adjust the frequency
Years ago I recorded weather satellite signal to minidisk, and at home moved signal to computer. It worked well.
I not a subscriber and this is the first video I watch. But man, you really like what you do, from heart, its very rare. Keep it up good job.
Those antenna mounts, so simple I never even considered it! Brilliant!
I'm waiting on the Saveitforparts space program.
I'm actually hoping to do a Sandland space program day with some of this stuff set up in a nice clear field and a variety of rockets. Will need to wait until spring & more people vaccinated though! Also I still need to fix the Washing Machine Rocket after that crash last year...
@@saveitforparts do you have an email? I have about twelve different engine types that use a spinning axle instead of a rocket.
@@apexsystems2286 try my channel name @ gmail. Or my website is saveitforparts.com.
While this may or may not be the best way to learn, depending on who you talk to, it's the most fun for sure! Hacking stuff together and getting it to work gives such a sense of accomplishment.
Good job.
BTW, FLdigi will also decode wesat.
This is the most cool thing I've watched in a long time.
Amazing project. Really enjoyed following through your iterations
Using 3/8" Al stock is a good idea. You can thread it with a cheap Harbor Freight tap and die and this gives you possibilities for both mounting the elements and for solderless connections just by wrapping wire under mounting nuts.
Jump cut to "so, conditions are not ideal..." in a winter wonderland was genuienly funny.
I'm learning a ton about my old rtl-sdr dongle from this video, plus seeing more cheap tools to play with! Thanks!
I'm getting an urge to dig into my radio hobby again.
So impressed with your perseverance. I'd have given up long before - but that's not how advances are made!
We used to listen to satellite coming over head it was an experiment sat with a repeating recording.funny how you can hear it coming up over the horizon back in the 90s. Nice work grabbing the image!
Try a yagi antenna with the rtl sdr. It has gain built into the antenna. It’s pretty much a dipole with a director and a reflector radial. Reflects and focuses the signal. Much more directional you will have to track the satellite. Get your technician license easy test, then you can transmit to communication satellites with the uv5r. Good luck
Pretty cool. I'm always trying to make Antennas out of different materials that I find.
I just came across your video by accident. I'm a layman at such things....amazed, that's all I can say. I've subscribed. Great youtube video. Thanks.
Wow!! Brilliant work dude!! That's mind boggling from "Spare Parts" and a big brain!
This motivated me enough to buy a good RTL-SDR v3 with dipole kit.
At first I was figuring things out. Then I got to fun part of receiving APT from NOAA. At first I was getting nothing because 18 was in Asia while I'm in middle of Europe. I figured out that I need better spot to receive from ( I did 1st runs indoors, because it was cold outside). So I went to kitchen and tried there. 19 wasn't perfectly above me, but I could get faint signal. I was so happy. So I thought I have to place it in balcony, not inside. Tried. 15 was pretty close to me and i got amazing signal for 7 minutes. Decoded what i received and saw some clouds. According to map overlay, when satellite was going from africa to europe, i had no signal (blocked by indoors/behind). But after it flew above me I started getting signal (accessible from balcony). Very nice.
But i have a question. Is it okay that my dongle gets hot? Not warm.
Cool! I like the RTL-SDR v3 as well, that's what I mostly use now. With the V-dipole I noticed a lot of dead spots and interference from surrounding trees / buildings /etc. The little dipole antennas are OK but not very forgiving of weak signals. There are some ways to improve them, like getting it closer to a ground plane or a set of reflector rods like this: www.reddit.com/r/amateursatellites/comments/gicy6c/modified_the_vdipole_antenna_with_a_reflector/
I eventually went with a QFH antenna up on the roof (after a couple tries) which gives me a more consisten signal. I used this guide: usradioguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/20200307-How-To-Build-A-QFH.pdf
I've noticed that NOAA 18 is the strongest signal and the others tend to be weaker.
As far as heat, mine can get hot too but hasn't seemed to hurt it. I guess you could stick a metal plate on there as a heatsink, or a small fan if you're worried? My cyberdeck thing gets really hot when I leave it on but I havent killed that (yet) either!
That is impressive. Receiving an image from a satellite? I was expecting just some waveforms and dial up modem noise...
Wow this was randomly recommended and I had no idea any of this was even possible. Really cool video, thanks for sharing
Best content ever on satellite antenna loved it
i use noaa-apt program, it works amazingly for decoding APT.
ill try to get APT physically (i have the same cheap blue receiver, ill do something about it), i have been practicing with airspy server network (people share their receivers)
Lately I've been using Raspberry-Noaa V2. I set up a Raspberry Pi with RTL-SDR and filter in a waterproof box on the roof. I made a QFH antenna out of copper pipe, it took a few tries to get it right!
bought RTL-SDR v3 Blog with adjustable dipole antenna, I'm sure that will work.
Works perfectly. Currently practicing decoding ADS-B (getting aircrafts flying above Slovakia, there is no-fly zone in Ukraine at the moment). NOAA-19 will be above me in about 7 hours.
This is super interesting! I wonder if you can analyze data from different types of sattelites too in that way.
No idea why this was recommended as I have never looked at anything related. But hey variety is the spice of life. I will watch, and be intrigued
As a newb I learned so much from this video and rhe comments! Thank you!
It’s 2:24 am. This popped up in my feed. I watch the whole thing and had no idea of what the hell was going on… but you brought it home in the end. That was some nasa wild animal engineer stuff. 🤯