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Using the C_Band from the Atlantic Bird-3 Satellite for the Reception Photos
of Weather Satellite
Kobus Botha (South Africa) During February 2004 I decided to go for MSG of Eumetsat and gave myself five months to receive my first pictures--but what an experience it was. Firstly I registered with EUMETSAT--very nice people there. I then bought the hardware and had a special computer built for me. My dish is a 1.8-metre solid dish. The LNB is a Zintech C-band (uplink 3.4 - 4.2 GHz, downlink 950 - 1750 MHz, polarization is dualpol and noise temperature is 17K). It was not so difficult to locate the satellite. I used a computer program to calculate it for me.The program I used was Satco DX. You can use this program to calculate the exact position of the satellite for your particular position. You have to put in your coordinates in the program- it will then indicate graphically your position on a nice map as well as the dish size needed and the azimuth and elevation of the dish(please see the screen shot). In my case the azimuth is 304 and the elevation 43. I manual turned the dish more or less in the correct position. The cable was at this stage already connected to the Vbox card (more details later)in my computer.Please note that at this stage you must configure your Vbox card - I will explain how to do this later in this article.I used a signal strength meter( there are many types on the market- I used the Satfinder which is available at most dealers in dishes)to get the best signal(it is indicated on a scale of 1-10 on the meter) although this meter was not good enough for the final adjustments which had to be completed from the computer(I will explain this later).I cut the cable about two metres from the dish and inserted the signal strength meter there. So I finally turned the dish manually till I received the strongest signal. The meter was removed and replaced by a barrel connector. Back at my computer the signal strength was 82% as indicated on the software of Vbox.My cable length is about 40 metres, so I fitted an inline amplifier(at the position where the cable was cut) to find that the signal was better without it! I really suffered with the receiving card. Firstly I used an ordinary TV card but after many hours realised that the sotfware supplied with it was not compatable with the Tellique software of
EUMETSAT. So I bought the card which Eumetsat tested, the Broadlogic Vbox 2030 PCI card.Very important here is that the software of the card must make provision for TCP-IP settings. Please remove any firewalls on your computer- if not you will have major software problems. My computer is a Pentium-4 with 2.8 GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 80GB hard drive. The graphics card has 128MB built in RAM. I use only one computer and now have absolutely no problems. I do everything at the same time: receiving, decoding, saving, animating and all the other options. You really do not need two computers. I use the excellent software of David Taylor- and really enjoy the animator program. Now back to the final adjustments of the dish.I spent many hours on this part, specially to get the best position of the polarization of the LNB.The polarization of the LNB is very importantpolarization means that the plane of the receiving part of the LNB must be the same as that of the transponder of the satellite- in the case of Atlantic bird it is circular-left(when a normal yagi antenna is for example in a vertical position, the polarization will be vertical, etc.).To get the LNB in the best position it must thus be turned-circularly. The signal strength meter is not good enough for this job. In the case of the Vbox the software indicate the signal to noise ratio(see the screen-shot on "tuner status". You need two persons for this job- one to turn the LNB and one to check the signal to noise ratio on the software of Vbox- both with a two-way radio to communicate. Try to get the highest figure- if possible 3 or higher. This figure is changing continuously- it may even go negative, but don't worry. On average it should be more or less between 2 and 3. Always remember that you will have a voltage between 13 and 18 in your cable to the LNB- be very carefull for a short- especially when you change the signal meter, etc. To play safe disconnect the cable from the computer(this current is supplied by the computer via the receiver card to the connector for the cable). All the problems I experienced are now history. The compensation of the stunning pictures which I receive is fantastic. I really enjoy MSG every day, and my system runs 24 hours per day. I hope that this article will help other people interested in MSG who have to make use of Atlantic Bird. To see some of the photos,you can visit the website below. Kobus Botha(Dr) www.weatherphotos.co.za
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kobus_Botha
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