The blog of a dedicated radio amateur and electronics enthusiast

"Having fun on the air and in the workshop - communicating and creating"

17 April 2010

Full earth disc


Previously posted weather satellite imagery has been from satellites in low earth orbit as they pass over above my horizon for upto 15mins every 100mins or so. For full earth disc pictures I had to receive the signals from satellites much further away in the geostationary orbit; in particular satellite Meteosat 7 at 0 deg. E. Using an 80cm satellite tv dish pointing in that direction, I had no problem receiving the analogue WEFAX imagery on 1691MHz. The last time was in 2002; it doesn't seem so, but I checked. That's a long time ago. How time flies !
Recently, I have been occasionally listening for Meteosat 7's transmissions again; but heard nothing. Has the satellite re-entered, or been parked into a graveyard orbit, I wondered. No, instead it has been moved to above the Indian Ocean.
More importantly, the analogue service ceased anyway probably early in 2004. I can't receive the new higher resolution digital service from Meteosat 9, Meteosat 7's replacement at 0 deg. E, without spending some money on equipment. I might not bother.
So, if in the future I don't receive any more full earth disc pics, I have posted one from my archive from 2002, and we just have to imagine the quality and resolution of the digital pics nowadays; or use the web, but that would be too easy.

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