LRIT/HRIT Receiver

Custom LRIT/HRIT Receiver For Project Sonnet 18 to communicate with Geostationary NOAA Weather Satellites and pull down live satellite data.

Receiving the LRIT and/or HRIT signal can be done with relatively inexpensive equipment. This guide describes a minimal configuration that I have confirmed to work at my location.

https://pietern.github.io/goestools/guides/minimal_receiver.html

The bill of materials is as follows:

• ✅  Raspberry Pi 4 8GB with the whole kit to get it up and running.

  • https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-starter-kit.html

• ✅  RTL-SDR with R820T2 tuner

  • Available at NooElec; $24 (NooElec NESDR SMArt)

  • Instead of the listed RTL-SDR, you can also opt to buy the NESDR SMArTee ($26) which has an always-on bias tee for powering the SAWBird SAWBird LNA. Without an integrated bias tee you’ll have to supply power to the SAWBird yourself with a micro-USB cable (see pictures below).

• ✅  NooElec SAWBird with bias tee (LNA and filter board)

  • Available at NooElec

  • https://www.nooelec.com/store/sawbird-goes.html

  • (send an email to support@nooelec.com); ~$25

• ✅  ZDA Communications 20 dBi 1850-1990MHz Grid Parabolic Antenna, N-Female - Available at RFWEL.com

  • L-Com 1.9 GHz Parabolic Grid Antenna

    • Discontinued at L-Com; $89

  • Wondering if this will work? 24dBi Long Range WiFi Parabolic Grid Antenna 2.4GHz Outdoor w/ N-Female … too noisy of a signal from WiFi? Not tuned for 1.9ghz? IDK.

    • https://www.ebay.com/i/192580561183

• ✅  Heavy Duty Portable Antenna Mounting Tripod Stand | Adjustable 47-79 Inches Tall

  • Available at Arcantenna.com

  • Alternatively, roof mount tripod stands are available here at Data-Aliance.com.

• ✅  Adapter from male Type N to male SMA (for antenna to LNA)

  • Available at L-Com; $7

• ✅  Jumper from male SMA to male SMA (for LNA to RTL-SDR)

  • Available at NooElec; $8

Important

The listed grid dish antenna works for me at my location (San Francisco Bay Area). I can receive GOES-15 at its west location (135 degrees west), GOES-16 at its east location (75 degrees west), and GOES-17 at its checkout location (89 degrees west). GOES-16 is furthest away and at 25 degrees elevation at my location.

GOES- 16 East - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES-16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GOES_satellites
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goes-overview/index.html

If your location has the satellite you’re interested in at a lower elevation than 25 degrees, you may need a bigger dish. However, even with any satellite at a higher elevation, there are other factors that can impact whether or not you can use the dish mentioned here (blocked line of sight, local interference, etc).
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/currently-flying
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Operations/GOES/status.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_Operational_Environmental_Satellite
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/noaa’s-environmental-observations-spectrum-matters

Find your local azimuth and elevation on Satview (GOES-15, GOES-16, GOES-17).

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/how-satellites-work
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/transforming-energy-imagery-how-satellite-data-becomes-stunning-views-earth

Hardware

The setup to test this configuration looks like this.

• The grid dish antenna has a female Type N connector. To connect it to the SAWBird you need a male Type N to male SMA adapter (in the picture you see the adapter and an male SMA to male SMA jumper).

• The NooElec SAWBird is connected to the grid dish antenna on the input and the RTL-SDR on the output. It is powered by the Pi over USB (the bias tee version of the SAWBird has a micro-USB connector).

• The RTL-SDR is connected to the SAWBird using a male SMA to male SMA jumper cable.

• In this setup, the Pi gets its power over USB.

• In this setup, the Pi is connected to the network over Ethernet.

• The laptop in the right image was only used to SSH into the Raspberry Pi.

Note

While the Raspberry Pi 2 v1.1 is adequate for HRIT demodulation and decoding, it doesn’t leave much margin on the processing power. In a screenshot below you can see the demodulator use 96% of a single CPU core.

The RTL-SDR can be configured to use a low enough sample rate to still work with the Pi 2. If you want to use an Airspy Mini instead (which has a minimum sample rate of 3M samples/sec), you’ll have to use a Raspberry Pi 2 v1.2 or the Raspberry Pi 3.