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THE SANCTUARY POINT SATELLITE
WEATHER STATION PROJECT
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Cloud images of eastern Australia and the Tasman Sea from the Russian
Meteor satellite and the American NOAA satellite.
The image on the left shows Tasmania with light cloud while the image
on the right has Tasmania completely covered in cloud.
(Sample images from another
project.)
Today"s polar orbiting weather satellites, covering Australia,
are the Russian Meteor 3-5 and the American NOAA satellites, they serve
us well with pictures of cloud cover taken from about 800 - 1000 kms above
the earth. These images are used with other data from geo stationary satellites,
radar and land based weather stations to build a basis for interpreting
weather over time.
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The Satellite weather station
project
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The weather station project consists of small electronic circuit boards
and associated hardware. The project described here uses a receiver coupled
to an antenna, and a PC with a sound card.
The Receiver:The
proposed receiver is the RX2 satellite receiver kit.
 
The receiver printed circuit board showing
the first layer of components mounted and the final assembly of the board.
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The printed circuit board is housed in a metal case with the optional
level meter and an external power supply. Preliminary testing and alignment
is then carried out.
 
Front and rear views of a finished receiver
mounted in a metal case measuring 200 x 130 x 65 mm
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Antennas:
A number of antenna designs can be implemented
but perhaps one of the best and most sensitive is the Tall narrow quadrifilar
antenna.
Other antennas such as the J Pole antenna, Lindenblad and crossed dipole
designs for the 1 37.5 MHz band should also work with varying degrees of
success. Both the QFA (quadrifilar helix antenna) and the J pole antenna
are very easily built using short lengths of copper pipe and a few copper
fittings, readily available from plumbing suppliers. The mast for the QFA
is a short length of 32 mm electrical conduit. Both of these antennas will
give good reception in most areas and will not cost very much to build.
 
Two images of the tall narrow quadrifilar helical antenna, showing the
soldered copper elbows and the 4:1 balun.
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With both the receiver and an antenna built all we need to do then is
hook them up and feed them into the SanctuaryPoint.com
computer sound card with decoding software and wait for a satellite to
pass over to fine tune the receiver.
The Decoder:
Decoding and displaying the images is done with the computer and sound
card using a special software programme.There are quite a few PC programs
that track satellites in real time and these identify when and which satellite
is in the stations range. The satellites that are of interest is Russia's
MET 3-5 and America's NOAA 12 or NOAA 14. Also current Kepler elements
are needed to maintain accurate tracking on the tracking program.
If you are interested in assisting in this important project, email
engineering@SanctuaryPoint.com
Also of interest is the The
1-Wire Weather Station, which retrieves the wind speed, direction,
and temperature and the Weather Station software.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Would your business
like to sponsor this important project and have your name featured on the
WEATHER Page(s) ?
The WEATHER pages
are syndicated to other community portals around Australia thereby increasing
exposure for you.
If so, let us
know your interest by emailing us at Weather@SanctuaryPoint.com
Lets start today
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