Messing With HRPT Satellite Signals

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In addition to the VHF signals I've looked at before, many weather satellites also use something called HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transmission) on a microwave frequency. This is a little more challenging to detect, and requires tracking low orbit satellites as they pass by.
After a LOT of struggling and failures, I was finally able to record and decode some of these higher-res satellite images. Ironically, the antenna feed that worked best was something made from coathangers and putty!
I may try to follow up on this in a future video, since there are many more satellites that use this system, not just NOAA 19 which I used here.
Some possibly-helpful links:
Satellite pass calculator: www.n2yo.com/
Nano VNA V2: www.ebay.com/i...
Calibrating and using the VNA: • NanoVNA V2 Calibration...
Mini QFH Antenna kit (kinda sucks): www.ebay.com/i...
Mini QFH antenna info: www.dd1us.de/D...
QFH Antenna calculator: www.jcoppens.c...
Ground Plane antenna design (worked better!): m0ukd.com/calc...
Satdump software: github.com/Sat...
SDR++ Software: www.sdrpp.org/
Possible source for folding satellite dish: sub-lunar.com/...
The following affiliate links give me a commission if you buy from them!
RTL-SDR Blog V3 Software Defined Radio: www.amazon.com...
SAWbird+GOES LNA: www.amazon.com...
Saveitforparts t-shirts and other merch at saveitforparts...
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @saveitforparts
Or support me via Patreon at / saveitforparts

Опубликовано:

26 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 334

@sn0opyKS Год назад

Fun fact: you can see how long this project took by looking at the "Ride the Sandland Monorail" t-shirt. It goes from black with pristine print to washed out and broken apart print

@saveitforparts Год назад

I actually have two of those shirts, the one from Teespring started falling apart, while the one from Spreadshirt is holding up better :-)

@HansWeberHimself 8 месяцев назад

@@saveitforparts 😂

@pedrodepacas-ic1cb 6 месяцев назад

Hahahaha I have two of the same Cheech and Chong shirt, one that has lasted, and one that's all washed out and faded!! And I save everything for parts (although it's pretty much all 90's Toyota stuff)!!

@grashoper107 Год назад

Absolutely LOVE your videos pal.. It is rare to see people spend to much time on what 'didn't' work. I think you have amazing content! Thank you for sharing with us.

@igorschmidlapp6987 Год назад

No experiment is ever a failure. You just eliminate another method that didn't work...

@innercityprepper Год назад

RTL-SDR has a v4 out now that supposedly is awesome and generates a lot less heat. Can't wait to try one!

@ericgulseth74 Год назад

And cheaper! Also some improvement with HF. I can't remember off the top of my head. Down side I guess is its using a discontinued chip and it will be a limited run supposedly.

@illegalcoding Год назад

The improvement was that there is now an built-in downconverter, rather than having to use direct sampling IIRC@@ericgulseth74

@catsdontboot8735 11 месяцев назад

@@ericgulseth74 Also it uses a different driver, which for me was a hassle to set up on Arch Linux.

@mgoddard23 7 месяцев назад

@@catsdontboot8735 what issues did you run into? I got a v4 a couple of weeks ago and just installed the AUR package for the new driver and it worked fine

@bcadventure2015 Год назад

You have reignited my love for HAM radio these last few months. I’m nowhere near your level but enjoy tinkering around. Back in 2010 I was using a CB radio and somehow managed to skip trace from Vancouver BC Canada to Louisiana. My passion for radios took off at that point. Love your channel, never stop being authentic. It’s refreshing!

@alexjh47 Год назад

Get your license if you don't have one already! There's a ton of people out there talking on the sats. I've made contacts with people from Alaska to Arizona here in Vancouver through the ISS.

@BobHolowenko Год назад

The North Van, Surrey, Langley and Delta clubs run courses regularly. Join your nearest club!!

@chrismofer Год назад

Years ago I made a coat hangar-wire crossed dipole for receiving NOAA signals using a cheap RTL SDR. since then I became a HAM, acquired a hackRF unit and a couple nanoVNAs, plus a few amps and filters. I'm not very well educated in RF and have been trial-and-erroring everything, most of my projects being 2.4 or 5.8 for RC modelling purposes. But satellites are just cool. I have an old 'Dish' network dish with a high power ALFA wifi adapter and patch antenna that can see and connect to networks a mile away. It would be fun to point it skyward, but it is small for the frequencies used by SSTV and the like. Your channel is always an inspiration!

@warobinson Год назад

Been watching for about 6 months now.. Always love your topics! Hope you’re doing well! You deserve it!

@PotatoPete311 Год назад

It is awesome to see your videos doing so well!!! Being recomended allongside a lot of popular youtubers! 😊

@saveitforparts Год назад

Very cool!

@designer.346 11 месяцев назад

I love your channel man even though English isn’t my native language I can understand you clearly, you’re inspiring me and I think I found a new hobby, I gotta mess around with it. Greetings from the Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 🌴

@g4lmn-ron401 Год назад

I have been building QFH antennas for 70cms ham band and they were a challenge, pain in the butt, to adjust and tune, so going to 1.7 Ghz will only make that worse. Some times the simple approach is better, 1/4 ground plane! But you video proved my motto, "Don't be afraid to try it."

@miahsbrokengarage Год назад

Thanks for showing your "failures". Without mistakes, you cannot learn, and its clear you learned some things while making mistakes here. Good job! I learned a few things from watching your attempts as well.

@Errant_EE Год назад

A big help when antenna testing HRPT is to use the GOES HRIT downlink at 1694MHz as a received signal strength reference. It's close enough in frequency and always there!

@huntermclaren322 Год назад

You might consider this incremental progress, but the entertainment and education was a rousing success! Keep going, we love it

@kekons23 8 месяцев назад

never stop making videos, i get super inspired from them... thank you

@johnray854 Месяц назад

That garage is made of years of hard work

@mnowell3187 Год назад

Don't comment or watch youtube vids much on people doing stuff, but enjoy watch your vids! keep up the great work! I enjoy the honesty about the shopping list, not a fan when people ask me that question about what do i use.

@kittl29fujam1 Год назад

Can't wait for your future uploads. Really curious on your antenna mover / rotor design.

@ayitsyaboi Год назад

You're slowly inspiring me to get into a hobby that I absolutely do not need to get into. My workspace is bad enough as it is.

@sski Год назад

Eggssscellent. Persistence is the key to progress, indeed. That's why I like this channel. Good work!

@DougPeabody Год назад

I believe NASA has used a few zip ties and some duct tape in some of their projects. You're in good company. Great video.

@cstew8355 Год назад

👍 and 2mm think Tin foil that could withstand tremendous speeds.. those NASA guys really make me proud to be a liar

@KlodFather Год назад

@@cstew8355 - You are not a liar LOL But my pants are on fire... someone pulled my finger while they had a lit cigarette. 😱😂🤣💣

@chazmertes Год назад

I am so excited to see what you do with the efforts on satellite tracking hardware! I can only imagine what your brain will focus on when you have the freedom from physical limitations! :D

@tom23rd Год назад

Hey dude, i am experiencing fail after fail trying to get goes east. I am happy to see how "not easy" this is and now i am inspired to keep going. So thanks!

@swarnimdeveloper Год назад

Saw your channel just last week.. Really Love watching your videos. The best part is you share your failed attempts aswell which helps us to learn more. Keep making such videos even if video duration exceeds an hour. Thanks for sharing such informative content ! Definitely learned a lot from it..💙

@takochiba9151 Год назад

love your channel and recommend to all my buddies. most of my friends are programmers and struggle with the practical aspect of what you do. there is a lot of genuine fascination with these topics

@moormoor4281 Год назад

Love all your work and time you put in too the hobby's

@migalito1955 8 месяцев назад

Yep, the Nano VNA is a great tool. I bought one in early November & its still in the box needing calibrated. I am looking forward to using it, especially the feature that plots onto the Smith Chart which is actually just the Extended Complex Plane or Riemann Sphere where knowing that takes the mystery out of the chart. I also bought a new RS 918 about the same time. The new rig stayed in the box for 6 weeks too because I have conceivably too many projects. Eventually firing up the rig showed it came with a broken mic. At least the new mic arrived today and now, crossed fingers, the RS 918 is up and running for good. By the way it is a fabulous receiver, better than my old Kenwood or even my RSP-1A. Its terribly cold here in the Catskills such as 13 degrees for a high, but this spring I want to take the old satellite dish I found along the road and my RSP-1A along with the fitting LNA and then give satellites a go prior to stepping deeper in the rabbit hole of all things related to radio astronomy. I certainly appreciate your videos and they are both informative & entertaining.so, good luck in all things salvaged and 73 from de kc2wvb.

@ricardobornman1698 Год назад

Learn by doing. Best teacher ever.

@n8thegr8 8 месяцев назад

Found your content after trying (and failing) at the same stuff. Glad to see I'm not the only one struggling. Thanks for the tips!

@GrantRobertsonPlus 10 месяцев назад

Best channel find in ages! I love the parts bin ethos, and I envy your ability to manage more complicated projects.

@M0YKSHamRadio 11 месяцев назад

Great result and worth the effort. Really enjoyed watching your progress well done keep it up.

@Buzzygirl63 Год назад

You have more patience than I do, but this is really motivational as well. Thanks for sharing the trials as well as the successes... this is the true spirit of amateur radio!

@___aZa___ Год назад

Great Video. You bring an Energy into your videos, that is rarely found on the internet! :)

@bigdog8008 Год назад

We used to use 12m tracking antennas for commanding the old TIROS birds plus a few others that shall not be named. Had a quick change from one satellite to another so had to quickly swing the dish clear over. Both of the stop sensors were broken so the dish kept going. Incredible how much noise a 40ft dish makes as it crashes through the stops. Old Microdyne receivers used to be about $20K each and weighed about 20Kg but had pretty limited baseband compared to today. Also used to design telemetry frame synchronizers. Early ones were huge (VME cards) and had a max receive bit rate of 5Mbps. Current generation is about the size of a dollar bill (PCIe card) and is rated for 200Mbps but can go much faster. Xilinx software said it would hold on at 400Mbps but never have seen how fast it really can go. Seldom to see a data stream up above 100Mbps but there are a few up there. Back in those olden days - satellite telemetry design used to be "fun". Now it's all cookie cutter stuff.

@saveitforparts Год назад

Interesting stuff! I only understood some of that, but it sounds really cool. This is why I keep trying to learn more about satellite and comm stuff, there's so much interesting info and equipment out there!

@cbhlde Год назад

Uh, a new video - I already binged the rest, so thanks for making me happy today! ;)

@MaxUgly Год назад

All that data at the end makes it all worth it, you are getting so close, man. I am rooting for you!

@Liammcgowan Год назад

here is an interesting experiment required: 275mm glass coke bottle foxconn copper heatsink (detachable fins) micro filament wire sharp kitchen scissors construction: take the fins from the heatsink and using the scissors cut them into strips approx 6 - 8mm each. (they will spiral wonderfully) wrap the micro filament around the outside of the lower part of the bottle. place the copper spirals inside the bottle. aero acoustic resonance takes place probably am/fm.. didnt have an sdr at the time when i did it, but run a microphone through spectrum lab. could also make interesting balun / improvised feed horn. a couple of other things... ruckus wireless access point has interesting internals.. and have you considered a couple of counter rotating discone spaced apart by the width of a geostationary satellite for your microwave scan? cool channel, keep it going 🙂

@simonabunker Год назад

This is a great story of persistence!

@311engineering 11 месяцев назад

Love the folding antenna, it’s awesome. Need to find one myself. Cheers

@paintore Год назад

We love the learning process of you tinkering with parts, especially satellites/radio.

@MD-eb6iu Год назад

Loving your content and quiet enthusiasm.

@adomjan Год назад

Thanks for your picture, always a pleasure. Was funny to do some "forensic" to find your place on Google Earth :-)

@TooMuchMiddle Год назад

Really enjoying your videos. I appreciate that you don't try to sanitize everything. People need to fail to learn.

@dellman191 Год назад

Love your antenna videos and that you post your successes and failures. Really helps learn

@Williamprasempre Год назад

I appreciate your video too. Your way of doing things until they work without giving up Is quite a thing I would clap for.

@rosso4122 Год назад

nice video, as always, excited for those teased projects at the end!

@InfectedSquid Год назад

I love your videos! They inspire me to get myself into stuff like that.

@fredericfogg8784 Год назад

Thank you for your time and effort. You do really cool stuff!!!

@HolyCannolis Год назад

Appreciate the perseverance! I have almost no idea what you’re ever talking about…but always enjoy the process from the crazy guy with all the satellite dishes in his yard, who lives across from the cemetery, and sports a SPAM bumper sticker. 😊

@paperswan Год назад

Even though i'm not into satellites i just love your style man, never change!

@soulrobotics Год назад

love the whole video. that is a nice way to learn. hey let's build a tracker for that antenna!!!

@rkirke1 Год назад

Glad you managed to get a signal at the end! (even if you hadn't it'd still have persuaded me to finally order a NanoVNA!). For the AZ/EL project, two "scrap" options come to mind; treadmills with adjustable incline have a chunky motor & acme screw mechanism in them. Also, electronic power steering from cars (I worked on Mazda 2s around 2010 in Australia that used it, but many other cars do). In the ones I worked on it was a big 12V DC brushed motor driving a pinion gear on the steering rack - essentially a high torque linear actuator (with ball joints on the end, perfect to attach to a dish).

@saveitforparts Год назад

Ooh, good ideas on the motors! I did just order a sketchy solar panel az/el mount from China, so we'll see if that's usable when it shows up in 3 months 😂

@gardenfork Год назад

If you don’t fail you don’t learn 😀 great vid.

@TheModularChannel Год назад

That's amazing that you finally got the image. Love seeing the process and the progress!

@ericks1979 Год назад

Great job. I always find the meteor satellites the easiest ones to follow, metop is the hardest.

@sarkybugger5009 Год назад

I love your enthusiasm, and desire to succeed, despite the numerous setbacks. Well done. Time to polish up on your welding skills, ready for phase two of your ground station. 😂

@tech_hoarder Год назад

Great video! thanks for sticking with it and showing us the progress along the way!

@mikeomaly Год назад

I saw the star link satellites fly over my house/town the other night. They were lit up blue, in a line about 20 of them, and they went by pretty quick!

@saveitforparts Год назад

I've only seen those once, I always forget to look when they do a new batch. Very fun to see!

@Rebar77_real Год назад

A small enough dish to mount to a rail cart! :D

@BShocked Год назад

I really enjoy seeing the process of learning these new topics! A vertical antenna like that has a radiation pattern like a doughnut with a very large null in the direction it is pointing. You may get better reception by rotating the element.

@mikerhodes9198 Год назад

Well done. Thanks for sharing your trials. We are always learning.

@TheDiamondsDad Год назад

Really digging your videos dude! In the last few seconds of the video I realized I could see my house in that image, it's the one just a little south of Lake Erie among the noise band in Ohio!

@TheStowAway594 Год назад

This is super cool! I'm sure you were getting discouraged, but you stuck with it and got it, that's awesome. Also I had no idea you could get images like that, I don't really know anything about satellites or radio, but it seems like a really interesting hobby. What resolution were those images?

@saveitforparts Год назад

The HRPT images from NOAA are about 1km / pixel, and APT (older VHF signal that's easier to get) is only about 4km / pixel.

@gogglesfpv7986 Год назад

woah! dude I learn something new literally almost every video you drop. you have a seriously cool set of skills. about thing the only thing i can do close to this level is build fpv quad copters lol. but...data from space....waaayyy cooler than any quadcopter. this is mind blowingly amazing. thank you for you time and effort and energy to put out these videos. i learn a lot from you. keep it up man!

@toms.3977 Год назад

Back in the 80's, I used to download WEFAX pictures using a shortwave radio, a Radio Shack Color computer 2 (Coco2) computer, and a piece of software off of CompuServe's BBS server, and a homemade multi band wire antenna. What an adventure. Late one night, i downloaded a weather fax pic from Rome, Italy. It had some noise in it but was quite clear. I had a lot of fun with that.

@SteveWrightNZ Год назад

The slot or patch antennas are pretty gutsy

@moormoor4281 Год назад

Fantastic learning curve fantastic effort fantastic job from London England UK

@mxcollin95 Год назад

Love your videos, honesty and tenacity! Good video man! 👍

@t0nito Год назад

I just got into HRPT, I use a 65cm offset dish with a DIY 5.5 turn LHCP helical antenna and a Sawbird+ Goes LNA and I'm having surprisingly good results! I also made a mount to hold my phone at the correct angle do I can load Look4Sat which makes hand tracking much easier!

@moormoor4281 Год назад

All my love

@capedatanetworksza5913 Год назад

that 30dbi wireless dishes are great..we use them as links between towers +- 40 km

@Arma77743 Год назад

Nice umbrella!

@michaellichter4091 Год назад

Thank you for showing us some ways that don't work. As Thomas Edison said, 'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.' In the end, it did work, the high frequencies are a challenge.

@thomasvnl Год назад

No, we appreciate you for the content! See you next time

@twobob Год назад

progress is progress

@LunaWuna Год назад

I really love that dish. I wish i had one :(

@K1ZEK Год назад

Your the MAN 😮 Thank you. Learning and sharing is what it is all about. 73 Leo. K

@charlesnelson619 Год назад

A Cantenna works good with a dish reflector too. Its not circular polarized but give good 'illumination' of dish. I used one to pick up 2 GHz 25 miles away in the 1980s.

@saveitforparts Год назад

I use a cantenna for GOES satellites, that's in an upcoming video and an older one where I extended one of the little Ku-band dishes.

@lumotroph Год назад

Amazing! Great work. Inspiring

@QuesoDePalo Год назад

10/10 for the RTL-SDR, I love mine, we literally use it to listen to the radio on my linux lappy with 10 dollar thrift store technics on a 15 dollar amp. #saveitforparts!

@IrritablePunk Год назад

Yay another satellite episode!

@meowmeows8238 Год назад

I'm surprised that improvisation at the end worked! The QFH definitely isn't suited for HRPT though, since its omnidirectional, you just want the signal reflected from the dish, so more directional antennas will give more gain, usually a helical is used but this is a surprising substitute!

@daveys Год назад

Very interesting. Some useful learning points!

@bigbongtheory4222 Год назад

Great Video as Always!

@vargtheoak4200 Год назад

Never disappointed!

@wallydisc Год назад

Dude. So great. Well done. Again. Thanks for all the effort.

@koningbolo4700 Год назад

At least only one tree got hit during the making of this video...that is a win I would say...

@Blu3B33r Год назад

Amazing journey, thanks for sharing! A 3d printer and an equatorial telescope mount could be helpful for a DIY tracker. Motor brackets, to upgrade the telescope, can be found on thingiverse etc. I look forward to see your way of doing it if/when you get to it 😄

@philstrons Год назад

I was thinking the same thing. Even manually moving the antenna on a equatorial mount might help.

@garrettmandujano2996 Год назад

Really glad you had a little bit more garbage to make this work when those new prefabricated kits turned out to be actual trash Also: thank you for the swr meter recommendation, I had been looking for one

@Cameron_the_Robot Год назад

Such a lovely Wifi Antenna you made there!

@TheChefmike66 Год назад

Very very cool and inspiring content, friend! I love it!!

@W6IWN_Radio Год назад

Another great experiment! 👍 👍

@PapasDino Год назад

Everything is hard until you figure out how to do it! 73 - Dino KLØS

@mikeselectricstuff Год назад

I wouldn't think it would be too hard to make low-power test transmitter that has harmonics at 1.6GHz, which you could use to align the antenna to the dish and compare different antennas in a static environment.

@quadcam24v Год назад

SDR's can be such a headache when they mess you around. The antenna rotator would be a great project, anything to make your life easier while operating is great! I feel ya on the shed clutter, it's damn hard to stop it getting out of control.

@CHV7238 Год назад

Amazing, keep the good work!

@patchvonbraun Год назад

The NOAA "brids" also carry SAR payloads (search and rescue) for picking up ELT transmissions, and then relaying them to ground stations. I don't know whether those down-links are "secured" or not, nor what the formats are, etc.

@saveitforparts Год назад

That's something I have on my list as well. I think GPS satellites also have a repeater for 403mhz to something else. Apparently they sometimes pick up random transmissions from other equipment, foreign TV, etc.

@patchvonbraun Год назад

406MHz and I recall that the actual TX frequency is randomly assigned over a small range so that no two TX in the same sat coverage zone are likely to collide.

@LowOutput Год назад

I don’t think this necessarily contributed to any of your problems, it’s just something to be aware of. In mobile phone network land, the AWS band is in the neighborhood of 1700 MHz for the talk-in, meaning the user equipment such as cell phone or m2m device transmits there. So depending on your mobile phone model and provider and whether or not the provider has deployed AWS nearby, your phone could be transmitting a high enough signal, if close enough your satellite antenna, to make your satellite receiver unhappy. EDIT: fixed a couple of eyePhone typos.

@garbleduser Год назад

I love your work!

@hacktheory1337 Год назад

Love these videos brother. Keep it up!

@walkercustoms Год назад

Thank you

@m1geo Год назад

Your vertical element is wrongly orientated at the dishes focal point. You have the monopole pointing toward the dish. However the signal will be hitting the element end on, where the ground plane has least gain. Rotate the antenna at the feed point so the connector pokes out of a side, ideally parallel to the satellite track, and I think you'll get a better signal. A dipole may be a better choice. I've also seen people remove the SAW filter from active GPS antennas. Good luck! Watching with interest. 73, M1GEO.