How I capture Multiple Passes of NOAA Weather Sat and Decode Them

NOAA APT is one of the most easiest and most beginner friendly Space Data you can access. Even for a beginner, it's very easy to setup the ground station for APT and get their first images from NOAA Sats (15, 18, 19).

All you need is:

Hardware :

• A V-dipole antenna made for 137MHz.
• RTL-SDR
• LNA (Really helpful to get the signal even from a low pass)

Sofware :

• SDR++ (To recieve and record RF signal)
• Gpredict (For getting satellite schedules)
• SatDump (For Decoding the Signal and get images)

Note: As a linux user, I have shown the softwares that works with my machine. It should work with Windows and Mac too.

Getting started:

If you are not familier with this and a complete beginner, please visit this article first. It's a really amazing guide for beginners to follow.

Getting Multiple Passes of NOAA at the same time:

Before recording data, I setup my SDR++ as below:

• From Source option
  • Select 2.048MHz from Sample Rate
  • Check The RTL AGC
  • Increase the Gain as much as you need but don't over do it.

source

• From Radio option
  • Select NFM
  • Bandwidth 50000 (highest)
  • Check the IF Noise Reduction and Select NOAA APT

• From Recorder option
  • Select Baseband
  • Select output directory.
  • Sample type must be int16

That will be all. When The satellites passes over the head, Hit record. This will generate a large .wav file.

> Now it's time to get those data.

For that open SDR++ again but from source select File and then select the .wav file of baseband.

Now press the play button and go to Recorder

• select Audio
• Start recording.

You have to select the relative frequency for NOAA sats.