Herbert DL4SDR used an AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle VHF/UHF software defined radio
NOAA 15 Received With FUNcube Dongle
to receive a weather satellite picture in the 136-138 MHz band. On the FUNcube Yahoo Group he writes:
Today [August 19] I received a picture from NOAA 15 WX satellite with simple “stuff” FUNcube Dongle (FCD) and a VHF/UHF Ground Plane Antenna up 12 meters above ground , 200 meters above sea level, 15 meter coax cable WITHOUT pre-amplifier !
Hardware: FCDpro with newest Firmware V18.i with PC WinXP with onboard Graphics-Chip
Software: FCD-DF, Doppler-DF, SpectraVue, wxtoimage
Nice to see what’s possible with simple “stuff” :))
Regards from Germany
Herbert DL4SDR
In a follow up email he said he had also used a Ground Plane Antenna in the attic as well as one outside to receive the picture. He says he was surprised to get this good quality.
The FUNcube Dongle was developed as part of the educational outreach for AMSAT-UK FUNcube satellite project. Although it was designed to enable school students to receive the satellite beacon the wide frequency coverage of 64 – 1700MHz has meant that it can be used for many other applications.
The AMSAT-UK FUNcude Dongle SDR is sold by Martin Lynch & Sons (ML&S) at
http://tinyurl.com/MartinLynchFCD
FUNcube Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube