Any Scientific DATA Available?

[BigRyan]

Anyone know of the existence of say weather data, or live radar feeds and imagery FTA? I know that NOAA GOES Geostationary Satellite Server is available online, but I wanted to know if any such data is available on C-Band or Ku Band, or anything remotely close to this.

We are building an observatory for astronomy and I want to implement a C/KU band dish on-site that can display weather data (and of course NASA HD and UHD) or anything helpful. In order to escape the city Sky-Glow we have to get way out there, which usually means Satellite Internet (or NO Internet) so to free up bandwidth it would be nice to get any helpful data from other sources. So if anyone knows of anything close to this, no matter how small you think it is, even a still image of the Jetstream would give us a lot of information about astronomical seeing forecast for the evening.

Thanks!

 

[fred555]

Look up NOAAPORT.

Here it is:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/noaaport/html/noaaport.shtml

Its on 101W C band. Thats about all I know about it.

 

[phlatwound]

yeah, what Fred said. And there are some threads here on the forum where people have attempted/done that.

Seems like it may have took a well-tuned 12' dish to pull off IIRC.

 

[fred555]

I do vaguely remember that even a 10 footer was not enough, and at least a 12 footer was required.

This might work:



Check the SDR forum here, it is possible to pull weather images down from non geostationary sats with a $15 SDR USB dongle and a homemade helical antenna. It might have been our pal Spongella here that has pulled down images. You have to setup some software, then program in a schedule to receive data when the sat is overhead of your location Then the data gets processed to produce the images.

 

[fred555]

Here is the post from Spongella:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/east-coast-satellite-image.351865/
Nice images too:

 

[KE4EST]

Yes, Mario aka. spongella is the one to get up with on the weather via satellite. This is something I want to try someday myself.

 

[Dekker]

I know it's not what you had in mind but there's outernet...or maybe it is what you have in mind

 

[BigRyan]

This is certainly the kind of information I am hoping to gather with this thread!

 

[Stargazer]

Couldn't you request to have weather put on the Outernet downloads? I think that would be one excellent use for it along with weather alerts although I don't think the service would be able to support live weather alerts.

 

[BigRyan]

Looking into "Outernet" because it's interesting, has anyone used a Windows PC for this? I already have my TBS6922SE installed in the PC and have been testing it in Windows and Linux, mostly the NASA UHD channel. I would like to test this here at home and see what might be possible. I understand the concept and see that most have used a raspberry pie to build a receiver but is this necessary if you have a PCI-e tuner already installed in a PC?

Would this pertain to the other features of the TBS6922SE such as:

Broadband internet via satellite *
High-speed data download via satellite *

I never really quite understood how I would use those features because the TBS website has those asterisks next to those but no reference at the bottom anywhere to help explain HOW to use them.

 

[spongella]

BigRyan,

To my knowledge there's nothing on FTA for direct weather imagery via FTA satellites, but a good article by Ken Reitz was just published in this month's The Spectrum Monitor Magazine in his column "Radio 101" which discusses WXSAT imagery using NOAA LEO satellites. With a modest station you can pick up these images as the satellite is overhead. Currently there are three NOAA WXSATS to choose from. (In the interest of full disclosure I sometimes write for this magazine).

There are other ways to get satellite weather images, not directly from the satellite, but they are updated continuously via US Coast Guard stations that are available 24/7 on the HF (shortwave) band. All you need is an HF antenna, shortwave receiver, and a decoding program (free download) like MultiPSK or FLDigi. If you Google "Worldwide Marine Radio Facsimile Broadcast Schedules" it'll direct you to the NOAA site with all the schedules on HF. The transmissions of interest to you would be those described as "GOES IR Satellite Image." The nice thing about these is that depending on the station you tune to (e.g. New Orleans, Kodiak, Boston, Pt. Reyes, Honolulu) you'll get different images covering different areas. Attached is a partial GOES IR tropical satellite image from NMG, New Orleans, on 8.502 MHz at 1405Z gotten this morning. Band conditions dictate how well an image will be decoded.

This is an excellent post with great comments from forum members.

Sponge

 

[fred555]

Looking into "Outernet" because it's interesting, has anyone used a Windows PC for this? I already have my TBS6922SE installed in the PC and have been testing it in Windows and Linux, mostly the NASA UHD channel. I would like to test this here at home and see what might be possible. I understand the concept and see that most have used a raspberry pie to build a receiver but is this necessary if you have a PCI-e tuner already installed in a PC?

Would this pertain to the other features of the TBS6922SE such as:

Broadband internet via satellite *
High-speed data download via satellite *

I never really quite understood how I would use those features because the TBS website has those asterisks next to those but no reference at the bottom anywhere to help explain HOW to use them.

The only instructions for Outernet I have found are for the Pi, and then for only specific USB tuners.
https://outernet.is/rpi
https://wiki.outernet.is/wiki/List_of_tuners

The tuner they sell on their site is a steal at $25 however:
http://store.outernet.is/products/outernet-tuner-for-raspberry-pi

I have three USB tuners already and none of them work with Outernet.
I gave up since I refuse to buy a forth tuner.

 

[BigRyan]

BigRyan,

To my knowledge there's nothing on FTA for direct weather imagery via FTA satellites, but a good article by Ken Reitz was just published in this month's The Spectrum Monitor Magazine in his column "Radio 101" which discusses WXSAT imagery using NOAA LEO satellites. With a modest station you can pick up these images as the satellite is overhead. Currently there are three NOAA WXSATS to choose from. (In the interest of full disclosure I sometimes write for this magazine).

There are other ways to get satellite weather images, not directly from the satellite, but they are updated continuously via US Coast Guard stations that are available 24/7 on the HF (shortwave) band. All you need is an HF antenna, shortwave receiver, and a decoding program (free download) like MultiPSK or FLDigi. If you Google "Worldwide Marine Radio Facsimile Broadcast Schedules" it'll direct you to the NOAA site with all the schedules on HF. The transmissions of interest to you would be those described as "GOES IR Satellite Image." The nice thing about these is that depending on the station you tune to (e.g. New Orleans, Kodiak, Boston, Pt. Reyes, Honolulu) you'll get different images covering different areas. Attached is a partial GOES IR tropical satellite image from NMG, New Orleans, on 8.502 MHz at 1405Z gotten this morning. Band conditions dictate how well an image will be decoded.

This is an excellent post with great comments from forum members.

Sponge

Wow this is great, so how expensive of a HF antenna do I need? I'm going to look into this option for sure, thanks so much for sharing.

 

[BigRyan]

The only instructions for Outernet I have found are for the Pi, and then for only specific USB tuners.
https://outernet.is/rpi
https://wiki.outernet.is/wiki/List_of_tuners

The tuner they sell on their site is a steal at $25 however:
http://store.outernet.is/products/outernet-tuner-for-raspberry-pi

I have three USB tuners already and none of them work with Outernet.
I gave up since I refuse to buy a forth tuner.

So any idea what this is useful for then?
Broadband internet via satellite *
High-speed data download via satellite *
Thanks for sharing your experience with this project so far.

 

[fred555]

So any idea what this is useful for then?
Broadband internet via satellite *
High-speed data download via satellite *
Thanks for sharing your experience with this project so far.

Outernet will allow one way data download. Originally intended for poor countries?
https://outernet.is/content/

Pi, tuner and Ku dish is all that's required.

Capacity Usage: 60%
music, videos, courses, DIY projects, games, art.
Capacity Usage: 30%
textbooks, health guides, courseware, certain software.
Capacity Usage: 10% core archive
Twitter, disaster alerts, news, crop prices, weather.
This is the greenest of evergreen content. Material of such critical importance that Outernet doesn't just send it once. We keep sending it so that new Outernet receivers can start receiving it.

 

[fred555]

In order to have Broadband internet via satellite you will have to subscribe using the usual providers.

 

[BigRyan]

Outernet will allow one way data download. Originally intended for poor countries?
https://outernet.is/content/

Pi, tuner and Ku dish is all that's required.

Capacity Usage: 60%
music, videos, courses, DIY projects, games, art.
Capacity Usage: 30%
textbooks, health guides, courseware, certain software.
Capacity Usage: 10% core archive
Twitter, disaster alerts, news, crop prices, weather.
This is the greenest of evergreen content. Material of such critical importance that Outernet doesn't just send it once. We keep sending it so that new Outernet receivers can start receiving it.

And this is what the TBS card says it can be used for but as others have said it will not work. So I was wondering what TBS means by:

Broadband internet via satellite *
High-speed data download via satellite *

As it pertains to the TBS6922SE since I can not use it for Outernet.

 

[BigRyan]

In order to have Broadband internet via satellite you will have to subscribe using the usual providers.

So this is only for something like Hughesnet? No other function is possible?

 

[fred555]

And this is what the TBS card says it can be used for but as others have said it will not work. So I was wondering what TBS means by:

Broadband internet via satellite *
High-speed data download via satellite *

As it pertains to the TBS6922SE since I can not use it for Outernet.

Not really sure, maybe in Europe it can be used in that manner.
The Sat thing is way bigger over there.
How would you transmit the outgoing request packets?

 

[fred555]

So this is only for something like Hughesnet? No other function is possible?

As far as I know, in the US, to have satellite broadband you will need to subscribe to Hughesnet, Excede or a similar provider.