Build your own weather satellite receiving station

For the initial SD card setup, you will need:

We’ve updated a project by Steve Blackmore to make our own antenna.

We will make a Quadrifilar Helix Antenna (QHA) to receive weather satellite radio signals. The key feature of a QHA is the helical (spiralled) shape, which allows the antenna to capture signals from all directions. The term "Quadrifilar" means it has four conductors (wires). We’ll wrap the wires around the helix to provide four separate paths for the signal to travel. The QHA is a circularly polarised antenna, so it can receive signals in horizontal and vertical planes. This allows the antenna to maintain efficiency regardless of the antenna’s orientation.

Our antenna consists of a single plastic mast with 3D-printed parts to hold the copper conductors in their correct orientation. We’ll ultimately connect the antenna to the USB SDR connected to our Raspberry Pi.

The following diagram illustrates the exact dimensions that are important to the finished antenna:

First, let’s print out the supports.

Print the pieces using ABS filament using the right settings for your printer. We printed ours using a 0.8mm nozzle, 0.4mm layer height, and 100% infill for maximum strength.

Measure and cut a 1.5 metre length of 40mm waste pipe to make the mast. Then, using a suitably straight edged item — like a long spirit level — draw a line down the length of the mast.

Next, measuring from one end of the pipe, mark the line at three points: 25mm, 925mm, and 1025mm. This is where we’ll mount the conductors.

Our conductors are made from 8mm microbore copper tubing. Using a hacksaw, cut the tube to the following lengths:

Take the four 85mm lengths and drill a 3mm hole approximately 5mm from one end of each length. These holes are for the self-tapping screws that will hold the wiring in place.

Take the 3D-printed top conductor ring and slide it onto the top of the mast, lining up one of the four holes with the first mark you made 25mm from the end. Align the mark exactly onto the centre of the hole; this should leave 10mm of mast exposed at the end.

Next, use the ring to align the drill bit and drill four 8mm holes in the mast 90 degrees apart from each other:

Take the lower conductor ring and slide it into position at the mark you made at 925mm.

Do the same with the bottom ring at the 1025mm mark.

Take extra care during this stage to make sure you correctly align the 3D printed pieces:

When you are happy with all your measurements and positioning, drill two 8mm holes in the middle and lower rings.

Next:

Your tubes should extend 200mm from the centre of the pipe on either side:

Taking into account the helix shapes, the two long helix elements will be 1012mm long with the corner pieces attached, and the two short helix elements will be 913mm long. Combining those lengths with the helix shaping gives the measurements shown in the previous side view.

Next, drill a 7mm hole approximately 100mm from the end of the mast inline with the cable management holes in the lower conductor rings.

Take your RG58 coax cable and cut off the male connector end — we won’t need it.

Feed the cable into the mast through the drilled hole and out of the end.

Use your wire cutters to strip back the outer plastic jacket on the exposed end by about 50mm. Then, wind the outer woven metal braided wires into one wire.

Remove the insulation layer surrounding the central solid copper wire.

Next, pass the central solid copper wire in the RG58 coax cable through the drilled holes at the end of one of the long helix element loops. Wire it all the way through the end of one of the short helix element loops.

Pass the outer woven metal braided wires through the remaining holes on the other short helix element loop and long helix element loop.

Hold the wires in place with the four self-tapping screws:

Finally, we need to create a balun: a device that helps connect balanced antennas to unbalanced coaxial cables by converting the two transmission line configurations. This plays a crucial role in maintaining signal quality, reducing interference, and optimising the performance of any antenna.

Wind the coax cable around the mast four times, then place a cable management ring just below it to hold it in place. To do this, remove the two lower conductor 3D printed rings attached earlier (this is temporary, we’ll put them back on in the next step).

Now your balun should look like this:

Slide on the mid ring, another cable management ring, and replace the two lower rings.

Slide the two 185mm lengths of copper back into place.

Push-fit four of the solder ring elbows.

Attach the two long and two short helix elements into place.

Look down at the antenna from the top. It should appear circular in shape:

Now is a good time to remeasure (from the center of each element):

When you’re happy with the placement, use a small amount of solder and a blow torch to weld all 16 connections between the tubes and corner joints.

If you chose to 3D print the antenna stand, slide the mast into place and you’re done!

If you opted to use your own antenna stand, it’s time to figure out another way to mount it.

Regardless of the method you use, position it with an elevated, clear, and unobstructed view of the sky.

To begin, follow the Getting Started documentation to set up your Raspberry Pi. For your operating system, choose Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32-bit) to run headless (without a mouse and keyboard).

During the OS customisation stage, edit settings as follows:

SSH allows you to wirelessly connect to your Raspberry Pi, eliminating the need for a keyboard and mouse. It’s perfect if your Raspberry Pi is located in a hard-to-reach location, like behind a train times display.

$ ssh <username>@pi-weather.local

$ ssh <username>@pi-weather.local
The authenticity of host 'pi-weather.local (fd81:b8a1:261d:1:acd4:610c:b069:ac16)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:s6aWAEe8xrbPmJzhctei7/gEQitO9mj2ilXigelBm04.
This key is not known by any other names
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/
[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'pi-weather.local' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.

<username>@pi-weather.local's password:
Linux pi-weather 6.1.21-v8+ #1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr  3 17:24:16 BST 2023 aarch64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Fri Oct 27 09:41:00 2023
<username>@pi-weather:~ $

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt full-upgrade

$ sudo reboot

Attach the SDR dongle to any of the four available USB ports on your Raspberry Pi and attach the MCX male to BNC female adaptor into the side of the SDR. You should feel a reassuring click when the cable is inserted correctly. Attach the other end of the BNC connection to your antenna’s RG58 coax cable BNC female connector.

Now that your Raspberry Pi is up and running and your antenna is ready to use, let’s install raspberry-noaa-v2. Open a terminal and run the following commands to install raspberry-noaa-v2.

First, install git, a popular version control system:

$ sudo apt install git -y

Next, navigate to your home directory and use git to download raspberry-noaa-v2:

$ cd
$ git clone https://github.com/jekhokie/raspberry-noaa-v2.git

Finally, open the configuration file for raspberry-noaa-v2 with the nano text editor:

$ cd raspberry-noaa-v2/
$ cp config/settings.yml.sample config/settings.yml
$ nano config/settings.yml

# base station configurations
#   latitude: south values are negative
#   longitude: west values are negative
latitude: 52.2048
longitude: 0.1304
altitude: 42.0

# time zone offset from UTC (for example, '-5' for US Eastern)
timezone_offset: -5

# locale settings for timezone and language
#   timezone: see https://www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php
#   lang_setting: see the 'webpanel/App/Lang' folder for available
#* * * *  languages (2-letter filename - e.g. ar, bg, de, en, es, nl)
timezone: America/New_York
lang_setting: en

web_server_name: pi-weather.local
enable_non_tls: false
web_port: 80
enable_tls: true
web_tls_port: 443
cert_valid_days: 365
lock_admin_page: false
admin_username: 'admin'
admin_password: 'admin'
web_passes_date_format: 'd/m/Y'
web_datetime_format: 'd/m/Y H:i:s'

$ ./install_and_upgrade.sh

Using your usual computer, open a browser session and visit https://pi-weather.local:443. You should see the Raspberry NOAA V2 web page.

You will see a live view of weather satellites orbiting the planet and a list of satellites due to pass over your area.

To make this page easier to understand, click the eye icon in the top right corner of the screen (marked in red below) to change view options:

Click the globe icon to the left to open up more options. Under Terrain, select None to show the globe.

Left click and move your mouse around to rotate the globe.

You should see satellites orbiting slowly across the planet, and a small red icon that marks the location of your ground station.

The list under the globe shows all of the satellites due to pass over your ground station. Greyed out lines are historic flyovers. Raspberry NOAA V2 records when a weather satellite flies over and updates the list of upcoming satellites every night.

Once you have received some data, navigate to the Captures tab:

Here you will see a list of all satellite passes recorded. Click on any one for more details.

Each picture represents specific data collected from a satellite pass.

You can click Information in the top right for more details.

For example, the following image shows cloud cover with enhanced emphasis on rainfall shown in bright green and yellow:

And the following image shows temperature:

Different satellites produce different quality images.

The following capture recorded a poor-quality image due to the antenna being indoors:

Image quality depends on many factors:

Enhancing your satellite-tracking skills can be a rewarding challenge. Even though this tutorial focuses on weather satellites, the principles you’ve learned apply to other satellite types, like amateur radio satellites or CubeSats. Your weather satellite receiving station is not just a standalone project: it can help you deepen your understanding of space and technology.

Consider sharing your experiences and findings with the maker and amateur radio communities. Social media platforms, blog posts, and forum discussions are excellent ways to showcase your work, share ideas, and inspire others.