My Antenna (hopefully more to come)

This is my 137MHz, right-hand polarized double cross dipole antenna. I built it over the midsemester break from university in July, 2019, and is what I currently use to tune in to NOAA satellites that fly nearby.

25-March-2020, 11:05, NOAA-19

Ove the past week, I've been upstate, and I took my SDR and custom antenna with me. Unfortunately, I managed to damage my antenna a bit (I think), plus there were some trees in the way of the signals. I was originally trying to locate the signal of a different satellite (MetOp-B) that happened to be passing at almost the same time, but I couldn't seem to find its signal, or it wasn't broadcasting. However, I haven't gone out for a long while to listen to NOAA satellites, but I'm planning on expanding my horizons to other satellites, and thinking of a way to automate the NOAA satellites.

13-August-2019, 19:07, NOAA-19

This is the first time I intentionally tried to hone in on a satellite that wasn't passing over in a good location for me. In fact, this pass had a maximum elevation of only 33°. My reasoning was simple - how far can I see? I'm still waiting for the perfect pass between Australia and New Zealand - not too close that I can't see much of New Zealand, but not too far away that I can't pick up the signal very well. I guess you can think of this one as a test for my New Zealand image. Speaking of seeing other lands, I managed to capture a bit of Antarctica in this one.

31-July-2019, 21:40, NOAA-18

Look at this fantastic false-colour image I pulled on my new, re-built antenna. Re-built, because the previous night I managed to drop it and break it, and snap off 4 of the aluminium rods that make up half the dipoles. This is definitely the best image I've managed to get so far, but I am still striving for that perfect NOAA image. I'm currently waiting for a NOAA satellite to fly right between New Zealand and South Eastern Australia, for an attempt to try to capture New Zealand in the shot too.

22-July-2019, 17:49, NOAA-19

These were a bit lower quality, and also have a small line just under Tasmania because I accidentally hit my touch screen laptop and changed the bandwidth for a few seconds.

22-July-2019, 09:35, NOAA-18

These were fantastic quality. I'm not sure if it was because on this attempt I decoded the image live, rather than saved the audio and decoded it later (I will be looking into that in the future), but either way, it turned out very nice. However, there was quite a large amount of noise on this image, probably because I was recording from my relatively small back yard, and didn't have as much view of the sky as opposed to where I normally record, that being in the middle of a large public park.

20-July-2019, 23:52, NOAA-18

These have a special place in my heart, as these were the first images I pulled from a weather satellite after building my first antenna (see far above). I was all alone at midnight in the middle of a dark field, and when I heard the distinctive NOAA clicking and ticking, I think I actually yelped in joy.