As the title says, I need some observations of NOAA satellites, as data source for a PhD project. The data will be analyzed for getting an error rate over the individual passes. From that, I want to estimate the minimum elevation that is needed to decode a meaningful signal, which also depends on the azimuth. I already have a draft implementation which can use OGG files of observations as data source. I chose to use APT data as they contain known parts which can be used to estimate an error rate.
To test my approach I need further observations which contain not only the “best part” of the pass, but also some noise at the beginning and end. Thus, stations that use a low minimum elevation setting would be ideal. Preferably I would like to have data from stations with different antenna types with and without tracking for as many passes as possible (also those at low elevation) over the course of 1-2 weeks. It is also important that the setup (antenna type, LNA, SDR, topography, …) is known and no modifications are made to it during the time period.
Would any of you be willing to provide me these details (if not mentioned in the station overview) and allow me to schedule some NOAA observations?
On a sidenote, I need to download the OGG data in bulk afterwards, hope that this is no problem regarding the network…
Felix, let me know which satellites you want and I can schedule observations for you with 0° horizons. Station 272: attic mounted QFH, no LNA. Not a great setup for NOAA sats, but you can still get some data.
If you have scheduling rights, please feel free to schedule the observations yourself.
Thank you for offering your support, this sounds perfect! The APT transmitters of NOAA 15, 18, and 19 are of use to me.
Seems I do not have scheduling rights currently because my station is offline and/or in testing. I already planned to get it up and running again next weekend. Maybe it is best to choose next week for gathering the data, so I can also get the observations from my station during that time frame.
By the way, how do you observe with a custom horizon? Using the auto-scheduler script?
You have continuous and consistent observations of NOAA 15, 18 & 19 on stations 101, 147 (turnstiles). Parameters have not been changed since ages and they are always scheduled with low minimum elevation.
It seems you don’t necessarily need new data yet for your project, you can just use previous observations to get the error rate. So perhaps you could just download a bunch of old observations and use those. I have an archive of Dec 2019 observations, some notes about it here:
Also, for past OGG files, you can get them from archive.org, so you don’t have to worry about using too much of SatNOGS’ bandwidth. See for example:
That is great, thank you for all the responses and explanations! It is correct that I do not need new data. Stations 101 and 147 fit my requirements quite well. I will definitely take a look at the database archive plus archive.org, probably it will provide everything I need… Thank you!
Hi,
If you need, I can alter the scheduling so that you get more of a specific satellite. NOAA 15, 18 & 19 seem to have slight differences in their transmissions.
73,
Hi,
Thank you for the offer! For now I’ll work with the existing observations. Some minor “gaps” in between are no huge problem. If I happen to need something specific I’ll get back to you.
73 Felix