Tagged: Metop

LeanHRPT – A set of tools for the manipulation of HRPT data

Over on Reddit u/Xerbot has posted about the release of his new software called "LeanHRPT". When combined with a software defined radio, this software can be used to decode and view HRPT weather satellite images received from satellites such as NOAA, Meteor, MetOp and FengYun. We note that unlike APT and LRPT weather satellite signals which transmit in the VHF bands, HRPT signals are generally at ~1.70 GHz and require a motorized or hand tracked satellite dish to receive. u/Xerbot writes:

LeanHRPT is a flexible, easy to use and powerful set of tools for the manipulation of HRPT data (maybe I could be convinced to add LRPT support).

When used properly LeanHRPT Decode can generate (almost) L1B data usable in actual land/weather observation, or just pretty images :)

You can get it here: https://github.com/Xerbo/LeanHRPT-Decode

The LeanHRPT project also contains LeanHRPT Demod, as you probably guessed, a HRPT demodulator. It features an incredibly high sensitivity as well as being able to do both realtime (through SoapySDR) and offline demodulation (baseband).

You can get it here: https://github.com/Xerbo/LeanHRPT-Demod

LeanHRPT Applying a map overlay on FengYun

Standalone Windows FengYun-3 & MetOp HRPT Weather Satellite Decoder

Back in June we posted about Alan (@aang254)'s work on porting the GNU Radio gr-hrpt decoder over to GNU Radio 3.8. More recently Alan wrote in and wanted to share the news that he has recently released standalone Windows decoders for the MetOp and FengYun-3 weather satellites.

MetOp and FengYun-3 are both polar orbiting satellites that beam back high resolution weather satellite images. Unlike the NOAA polar orbiting satellites which transmit both the easy to receive APT and more advanced HRPT signal, these only transmit a HRPT signal at ~1.70 GHz, so a satellite dish and motorized tracking mount (or hand tracked) is required. You will also need an SDR capable of receiving over 3 MHz bandwidth such as an Airspy Mini or R2. Alan writes:

I recently got FengYun decoding working after the release of my MetOp decoder a while ago. Since gr-hrpt wasn't usable for Windows user without some major hassle, I made some standalone decoders (Windows builds included in the repo) for both MetOp and FengYun.

Decoding is done by first demodulating with the included flowcharts or @petermeteor's, then processed through the decoder which does Viterbi / Differential decoding. The output then needs to be deframed by MetFy3x or any other software that can do so.

https://github.com/altillimity/Satellite-Decoders

A few images!

https://twitter.com/SamuelArmstro18/status/1285647473881513989
https://twitter.com/ZSztanga/status/1285277472284708865
https://www.reddit.com/r/amateursatellites/comments/hwhb7q/my_longest_fy3b_image_yet_i_got_up_at_430_in_the/
https://twitter.com/HA6NAB_Tomi/status/1285300023350222848
https://twitter.com/ub1qbj/status/1286734822820532224/photo/1

You can learn more about these satellites on USA-Satcom's Cyberspectrum talk and slides.

GR-HRPT: GNU Radio HRPT Decoder Blocks for NOAA, METEOR, MetOp and FengYun-3 Weather Satellites

Thank you to @Derek33197785 for writing in and highlighting @aang254's work on gr-hrpt, a GNU Radio 3.8 port of HRPT blocks from gr-noaa and other projects. These blocks are for decoding the HRPT signal from weather satellites like NOAA, METEOR, MetOP, and soon FengYun-3. @Derek33197785 writes to us:

[@aang254] made a custom HRPT decoder and ported HRPT blocks for NOAA, METEOR and MetOp to work with gnuradio 3.8 on Linux. Right now it is the only free and open source decoder for MetOp (that works), and he also thinks about implementing FengYun support. I tested the decoder and it works great.

He's also working on extracting the full data from HRPT, not just the AVHRR/MSU-GS imagery but also all the telemetry and other instrument data.

HRPT is a high resolution weather satellite image signal that is broadcast from the same NOAA satellites that provide the more commonly received low resolution APT images at 137 MHz. HRPT is also broadcast by the FengYun-3, Metop and Meteor satellites. However, HRPT transmits at 1.7 GHz, so a high gain dish antenna with motorized tracking mount (or hand guided tracking), LNA and a high bandwidth SDR like an Airspy is required to receive it.

A Metop HRPT Weather Satellite Image (resolution reduced). See @Derek33197785's twitter for the full resolution image.
A Metop HRPT Weather Satellite Image (resolution reduced). See @Derek33197785's twitter post for the full resolution image.