Backyard NOAA Satellite Ground Station

Grabbing images from weather satellites with Software Defined Radio

Background

In September 2020, my hometown was threatened by the Alameda Fire. After experiencing the information darkness of losing cable and internet, I decided build an antenna to receive weather images from NOAA satellites. This was something I'd come across and wanted to do for awhile, but the fires and intermittent loss of information/communication made me realize the real value of this project.

The ground weather station uses a dual dipole antenna, SDR receiver and decoding software to track satellites and refresh images. The SDR receiver can be purchased for as little as $25, the software is completely free, and the rest of the build materials can be bought for less than $10 at a hardware store, so this is an extremely affordable project.

For those that would like to build their own, I'd point you to the following article: RTL-SDR TUTORIAL: RECEIVING NOAA WEATHER SATELLITE IMAGES. It doesn't make sense for me to walkthrough the design/build when such an excellent resource already exists. Additionally, I found this paper very helpful for V-Dipole antenna design, which is much easier to manufacture: DIY 137MHz WX-sat V-dipole antenna.pdf

My Build I started this project with my friend who was also helping me on the DIY turbojet engine. I brought over my SDR, coax cable, and supplies from an Ace hardware run. We built the antenna with mostly pliers and a soldering iron going off the sources listed above. We were working against the clock to get the software running before the only NOAA satellite pass of the day. When the pass came, we stood outside holding the antenna as high as we could, but couldn't get a signal.

I spent the next day struggling with the project. I searched the internet of recordings of previous transmissions that I could use to troubleshoot my decoding software, but none existed (yet). It doesn't help that there are only one or two opportunities a day to test with a live satellite pass. I eventually traced the problem to the virtual audio cable software, which was fixed by reinstalling it on the third try, Finally I got my first image:

Kinda garbage but still pretty cool that it came from space.

I was still working out the kinks. With a few more attempts I learned that the antenna is very sensitive to interference from buildings, trees and powerlines. More, I read that antennas struggle especially when near metallic objects of similar lengths. My setup used a Quik-Grip clamp to attach the antenna to a broomstick which had a metal spine nearly the same length as my antenna, so I swapped it out with a hand clamp. Instantly my image quality improved.

My next goal is to set up a permanent antenna and have new images get pushed to my phone. For now, here's a photo dump:

nerdzoo.xyz