Receiving APT signal of NOAA satellites using V-Dipole antenna

Abstract

Weather forecasting has always been an essential part of man’s numerous activities including day-to-day agriculture, seafaring, deep sea fishing. Over the past several decades, weather forecasting has been carried out using satellite, internet other sophisticated equipment. But, this may not be accessible in remote places like hilly regions deep seas. However, huge expenses, poor resolution of the images, and very low availability of useful information from them have always been among the top issues faced. Fine reception of these images and extraction of relevant information is easier said than done. This project aims to decrease the cost of imaging substantially, and greatly improve availability of such images. By making use of locally available raw materials, an antenna will be constructed and tested with good results that would receive fine APT signals from NOAA 15, 18, 19. Using sync pulses, the audio signals will be decoded into an image in WXtoIMG. Filtering, cross correlation and noise reduction are some of the steps that will be implemented to form the image. This system thus provides a comprehensive solution for receiving satellite images with a Software Defined Radio, an appropriate antenna and various application environments for decoding the audio signals into an intelligible image. It requires very less processing power thus making weather forecasting quite convenient for the common man. It is therefore a low cost and a homebrew elucidation of a technique that is otherwise regarded as quite sophisticated by space enthusiasts.