View this post on Hive: Another night with the NOAA 18 Satellite and tracking airplanes
I recently started to play with my SDR (Software Defined Radio) trying to receive any radio signal I could reach and decoding them. Due software limitation on Mac OS X, I'm currently focusing on NOAA weather satellite imagery and ADS-B (air traffic surveillance).
When at home, I can receive some signal from NOAA 15, 18 and 19 indoor but it would be rather weak, unless the satellites are passing high overhead. My other option to get a strong signal is to climb on the roof of the house but as I'm surrounded with mountains and trees, I need to wait until the satellite is at a certain height above the horizon before I could get something.
Today, I decided to drive to Terrigal "The Skillion", about 30 minutes from home. The Skillion is a cliff at Terrigal. It's approximately 100-150m high and it's wide open all around which is great for capturing radio signals where line of sight is important.
First task is to climb up to the top:
NOAA 18 Weather Image
After I got up there, I first setup my antenna for NOAA imagery. From memory, each of the antenna element is at about 16.51 cm forming a V shape at 120 degrees pointing South and the radio is tuned at 137.9125 MHz.
I then connected the antenna to a RTL-SDR v3 USB dongle itself connected to a Macbook Pro running CubicSDR for receiving the radio signal and Wxtoimg for decoding it and generating the weather image.
I'm using the Orbit a free iPhone app for tracking satellites. It shows the satellite and its trajectory in real time and with the iPhone's compass it's easy to track the satellites.
For a better signal, I could hand hold the antenna and point it at the satellite but NOAA satellites' trajectory are always North-South so a 120 degree V-Dipole antenna pointing North or South is enough to receive a clear signal even when the satellite is low on the horizon. I was impressed as I usually needed to wait for the satellite to be high enough but this time I could get a signal even before the app is telling me that the Satellite is at the horizon and I could still get it after it has disappeared from the app.
As the computer was recording and displaying the raw image in real time, I walked around and enjoyed the view from the top of the cliff.
And here are the final result. The image on the left is the satellite image with a map overlay. The one on the right is with precipitation data. My computer receives the image starting from the bottom. At the beginning there are some noise which is why you can see those black bands. As the signal gets clearer so is the image.
ADS-B or tracking aircraft using a radio device.
With my SDR, I can also receive ADS-B signal from aircrafts navigation system sent via RF on the 1090 MHz frequency.
Before leaving for Terrigal, I tested the system at home to see what I could get and here is the usual result when indoor with the antenna on a suction cup on the South window. I usually get aircrafts up to 200 Km away from my place and then they disappear.
Today at The Skillion, after playing with NOAA 18, I re-setup the Antenna for the 1090 MHz frequency by switching it to 7cm elements vertical dipole. Tracking from the cliff improved the signal reception quite noticeably, as soon as I launched the app (modesdeco2) it instantly showed some activity.
And after a short while, I managed to get 13-16 aircrafts on display:
For the first time, I was able to track aircrafts more than 200km away. One of them was over 300 km away. I should come and try again during the day when there is more traffic.
Here is a list of some of the flights that I managed to track:
And here are some stats from the modesdeco2
:
It was good fun out at The Skillion at night which I've never done before. I'm looking forward to my next attempt, maybe with a better antenna that I would build myself.
Previously on my blog:
- Tracking airplane flights with ADS-B and no Internet using dump1090
- Entering the world of RF (radio frequency) with weather satellite imagery
- Gravity Meditation or free your mind doing Rock Balancing
- A walk in the bush with a Nikon P7100 camera.
Vote for my witness
On Steem, Witnesses are playing the important role of providing a performant and safe network for all of us. You have the power to choose 30 trusty witnesses to package transactions and sign the blocks that will go in the Steem blockchain. Vote for me via SteemConnect to help me do more useful projects for the communities.
I'm a member of | these communities |
---|---|
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() |
Credits
- The image at the top has been generated with the Canva app using my own photo.
Banner by @josephlacsamana
Protect your money against Phishing Scam!
Cryptos accounts are the target of international scammers because they want your hard earned money!
Those people are very clever and in a moment of inattention, you've given them your login and password!
I've created a Chrome extension that can help you detecting scam links!
Install Steemed Phish Chrome desktop browser extension now!
Password and Private Keys security
You all know that your Steem password is the access to all your STEEM, SBD, posting, transferring, everything... right?
So, please, follow these simple steps and keep yourself safe:
- Apart from the initial setup of your account, NEVER use your password ANYWHERE, if stolen, it will give full control to your Steem account.
- Backup your password and keep it somewhere safe. Use a password manager like Lastpass, print it on paper and put it in a safe (no kidding). If you forget your password, no one can help you out.
- To login for creating content and curating, use your Private Posting Key
- To make transfers and account operations, use your Private Active Key
- To encrypt and decrypt memos, use your Private Memo Key
Great job! You got some nice decodes there. I just finished building a simple dipole last week for NOAA reception, but couldn't find time to try it out yet. Anyhow, SDRs are so much fun to play with :) keep it up!
Posted using Partiko Android
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Nice to see another SDR fan over here!
It’s fun indeed. I might start building an outdoor permanent antenna, not sure if I will use a V-Fipole, double cross or QFH. But will go for a coaxial collinear one for ADS-B.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Nice! For ads-b I had great results (about 150km range) with the crappy telescope antenna and a cheap, chinese wideband preamp. But a proper antenna is always the way to go.
If you have a 3d printer or know someone with one, you should check on thingiverse. There you can find many awesome and easy to build QFH antenna designs! For wx and ADS-B reception too. Enjoy! :)
Posted using Partiko Android
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
A radio with good antenna is like a camera with good lens
Posted using Partiko iOS
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You have some wide and varied hobbies don’t you 😆
Posted using Partiko iOS
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Yeah I’m not getting bored and it’s good material for a blog 😄
Posted using Partiko iOS
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Wow that's some very interesting stuff you can do.
Posted using Partiko Android
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Radio is an interesting topic indeed.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations @quochuy, you have received a 55% upvote. I'm the Vietnamese Community bot developed by witness @quochuy and powered by community SP delegations
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
@c-squared runs a community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi, @quochuy!
You just got a 0.91% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
and gifted with some virtually delicious cake
from the @helpiecake curation team!
Much love to you from all of us at @helpie!
Keep up the great work!
Manually curated by @priyanarc.
@Helpie is a Community Witness
For more information about our project,
please visit this month's UPDATE post.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit