Project for a low-cost weather satellite receive station for STEM education.

This is just the beginning source files. Right now I grab raw data from the NOAA 15, 18, and 19 satellites when I can but the data with the basic antenna I am using is marginal at best. Mostly noise. There is a wave (*.wav) file from an APT reception project of Mark Roland's. I use this file for practice in decoding from a signal that is already FM demodulated and sampled at 11.025 KHz.

Right now, the contents are pretty bare but over time look for more source files, example/test files, schematics, mechanical design files, and more.

My goal is to generate a full project that can be used for STEM education. With aspects of orbital dynamics, earth science, imaging, digital signal processing, software engineering, radio signals, and other topics, this could be a great project for classes to look at and build. The goal is to get a system that will be in the $100 range. We'll see if that goal works out in the end. Affordable for a school is the real goal or in the range where donations could purchase the equipment.

A running list of STEM topics covered by working on this project. Need to develop curriculum around these topics.

• Science
  • Meterology
  • Earth Sciences
• Technology
  • General Computing Platforms
  • Networking (Potential)
• Engineering
  • Software Engineering
  • Digital Signal Processing
  • Antenna Design
  • Radio Frequency (RF) Transmission/Reception -Math
  • Orbital Mechanics
  • Calculus

• Figure out a way to find the sync bursts in the raw data file. I'm missing something and I think it should be easier than I am making it.
• Write a scheduling system that will track satellites and configure/execute a pass. Seems to be the occasional conflict between NOAA-15 and NOAA-18 so some kind of deconfliction would be good.
• Once the APT system is mastered, consider additional satellites:
  • METEOR (LRPT Generic)
  • GOES
  • HRPT Satellites
• Develop build instructions for a QFH antenna.
• Add the ability to watch for transmissions from the ISS

As with any project, I will be standing on the shoulders of giants

• Mark Roland - Weather Satellite Imaging A great reference to learn from Mark's team experience and a very useful sampled APT signal.
• GNU Radio A wonderful, open-source, digital signal processing system. All of the modems, decoders, and other signal-chain aspects of the system are being developed in GNU Radio