Group for Earth Observation

The Independent Amateur Quarterly Publication for
Earth Observation and Weather Satellite Enthusiasts

42
June 2014
Inside this issue . . .
Last April’s GEO Symposium
was one of the mostsuccessful ever, with keynote
spealers from EUMETSAT, theUniversity of Leicester andtwo satellite DVB-S2 satellite
receivers. Francis Bell reports.
On the subject of receivers for
DVB-S2, Mike Stevens has
been carrying out tests wityha TV Tuner Card that could
also provide a viable route to
EUMETCast eception.
Raydel Abreu Espinet has
been investigating the effects
of solar flare outbursts on
NOAA APT reception. His
article may help to explain
those ‘mystery’ pulses ofinterference that we all
experience from time to time.
There are a number of shortfeatures from the NASA Earth
Observatory dealing withsuch diverse topics asprotecting Venice from rising
sea levels, signs that there
may be a major El Nino event
brewing in the Pacific Ocean,the flooding of the Somerset
Levels last winter,GEO MANAGEMENT TEAM
Director and Public Relations
Francis Bell,
Coturnix House, Rake Lane,
Milford, Godalming, Surrey GU8 5AB,
England.
Tel:
01483 416 897
email: francis@geo-web.org.uk
General Information
John Tellick,email: information@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Quarterly Editor
Les Hamilton,
8 Deeside Place,
Aberdeen AB15 7PW, Scotland UK.
email: geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Quarterly Despatch
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email: members@geo-web.org.uk
Tel:01509 820 067
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email: tech@geo-web.org.uk
Webmaster and Website Matters
Alan Banks,e-mail: webmaster@geo-web.org.uk
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Nigel Evans (Assistant: David Simmons),
email: shop@geo-web.org.uk
International Liaison
Rob Denton,
email: liaison@geo-web.org.uk
Clive Finnis
Carol Finnis

Publisher
Published by The Group for Earth
Observation Limited, a company in Englandand Wales, limited by guarantee and nothaving share capital.
The Company Number is 4975597.
The registered office is Coturnix House,
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Responsibility
Every effort is made to ensure that thetechnical and constructional articles
published in this Quarterly are correct.
However, the ultimate responsibility iswith the reader to ensure the safety of
constructions and for any interfacing withother equipment. GEO cannot accept liability
for shortcomings in any published design or
any constructions carried out by members orother third parties.
Copyright GEO © 2014
The contents of this Quarterly remain theintellectual property of the Group for Earth
Observation Limited and its contributors.
Copying of text or images, either from theprinted Quarterly or from any electronicallystored source, is forbidden without
permission from the Editor.

Les Hamilton
geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

All too late, I realised that I had set the copy deadline for this issue only one day
following the GEO Symposium. Since I felt it important that a report on the Symposium
was included, I moved the copy deadline forwards by three weeks to facilitate this. Of
course, this means that your magazines are going to arrive rather later than you anticipate,
for which I apologise.
he main focus of attention during the past quarter has been the GEO Symposium, which
took place at the National Space Centre in Leicester in late April. With the imminentchange to the EUMETCast dissemination format, GEO welcomed keynote speakers fromEUMETSAT as well as from the manufacturers of two DVB-S2 receivers, and this attracted
a big turnout of members, making the event one of GEO’s most successful. You can readFrancis Bell’s illustrated report on the Symposium on the following pages.
n the subject of receivers for DVB-S2, one of GEO’s most enthusiastic members,
Mike Stevens, well known for his frequent articles in the Quarterly, has been engaged
in trials of the TBS6925 DVB-S2 TV tuner card manufactured by TBS Technologies ofSingapore. Mike has been collaborating with TBS in helping them to develop their software
and, following several updates, the card is working perfectly with EUMETCast’s DVB-S
transmissions. Mike describes his experiences on page 16. All that remains is to test the unit
with the DVB-S2 signals once EUMETSAT starts transmitting them, and Mike promises toreport on this in the next issue.
recently received an email from Fred van den Bosch alerting me to the fact that NASA
has installed four HD-cameras on the International Space Station, and that these are now
streaming back live video of the Earth’s surface. You can access these transmissions at thefollowing URLs

T

OI

http://www.space.com/25797-nasa-hd-earth-from-space-video-webcasts.html

T

http://spacestationlive.nasa.gov/

wo of the GEO Management Team have new contact email addresses, and readers
should make sure that their address books are updated accordingly. John Tellick can
now be contacted at information@geo-web.org.uk while Rob Denton’s new address isliaison@geo-web.org.uk.
ou will notice that this issue of GEO Quarterly is much slimmer than usual, sadly
reﬂecting the lack of member contributions. Reports from those of you currently testing
DVB-S2 receivers from various manufacturers will be particularly welcome for GEOQ 43.
The Copy Deadline for last-minute items in GEO Quarterly 43 is Sunday, August 3, but
the bulk of the content material is required well before this date.

Y

Masthead photograph: Sunset over Netherland’s ‘New Wilderness, between Lelystad and Almere’

Contents
Symposium 2014 Report
Francis Bell
Quarterly Question
Francis BellGEO Quarterly ... the Future
GEO Management
Meteorology Manual by Storm Dunlop (Book Review) Robert Moore
Great Lakes in Deep Freeze
Keith Fraser
Bouvet Island: the loneliest land on Earth
NASA Earth Observatory
South Pole of Vesta
NASA Dawn Mission News
Parting the Sea to Save VeniceNASA Earth Observatory
Sentinel-1A Images Pine Island Bay
NASA Earth Observatory
Cover and Full Page Image Details
Satellite Status
Testing the TBS6925 Tuner Card for EUMETCast
Mike Stevens
Richat Structure
John Tellick
Our Not so Quiet Neighbour
Raydel Abreu Espinet
Somerset Levels Under Water
NASA Earth Observatory
From Soggy to Foggy to Hazy, Polluted and Dusty
John Tellick
Sentinel 1A Images The Netherlands
ESA
Is an El Niño Event Developing
NASA Earth Observatory
Feedback
GEO Symposium on YouTube
The ‘SatellitenPaul’ Exhibition
Paul Geissmann
EO Helplines and Internet Discussion Groups
Copy deadline for the next issue of GEO Quarterly
GEO Membership Application FormGEO Shop Catalogue and Price List

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June 2014

Francis Bell
After eight months of planning, I was pleased with the day’s
events on April 26, at GEO’s 2014 symposium. The feedback
I have received from those who attended the event indicates
it was judged a successful, informative and a very worthwhileday.
This was the seventh time GEO had held its symposium at
the National Space Centre (NSC) in Leicester, a venue locatedclose to the centre of the UK, with easy access by road rail
and air. Even without the GEO Symposium, the Space Centre
is worth a day’s visit for anyone interested in space activities
and satellite communications.
The symposium was well attended, with some fifty delegates,
perhaps the attraction being the international dimension
to the day with listed speakers from Canada, Israel,
Germany, The Netherlands and Scotland, as well as theSpace Department from Leicester University. Although
the programme of speakers took some time to plan, it was
satisfying when all the anticipated speakers arrived on theday. At one time I had hoped to have a speaker from NOAA
to bring us up to date with their future satellite plans, as I
particularly wanted to learn about the future of their ‘Direct
Readout Service’. However, financial constraints within NOAA
meant they could not attend. As an alternative, I am hoping
to receive an informative paper from NOAA relating to their
future programmes, which we will publish in GEO Quarterly
in due course.
The NSC has a conference suite just outside their main
exhibition area, and this is where the GEO Symposium
took place. One third of this area was partitioned off for ourplanned presentations and AGM; the other two-thirds wasallocated to display stands and administration. The stands
we deployed were devoted to:• The demonstration of live EUMETCast reception using
our portable GEO dish and the latest Ayecka S2 VCM
receiver.
• A reception desk which was also selling the latest SDR(Software Defined Radio) dongles.
• The GEO Shop, selling some of the items advertised onour ‘Shop’ web page and in GEO Quarterly.
• A stand run by Aharon Fuchs selling the latest
Space Band S2 VCM satellite receiver.
• John Tellick selling or donating some older satellite
receiving equipment.
• A stand run by our Dutch friends Werkgroep
Kunstmanen, demonstrating their latest satellite tracking
equipment.
• A stand displaying the raffle prizes for later in the day.
• A stand with promotional materials supplied to us by
EUMETSAT.
• Most importantly a stand for tea, coffee and biscuits.
The programme of presentations started at 10 am and wasvery close to that advertised with only small variations intimings. The seven speakers during the day were as follows:
Dr Neil Humpage
Dr Neil Humpage of Leicester University’s Space Centre,
described to us the research that the university was engaged
in, not just relating to the Global Earth Radiation Budget(GERB) data coming from the Meteosat craft on a global

2

scale but data from Metop/AVHRR which, combined withdata from aircraft, can provide fine detail about atmosphericcomposition to the point where even traffic hot-spots can be
identified from exhaust emissions.
Klaus-Peter Renner
Klaus-Peter Renner is a senior communications engineer withEUMETSAT, and presented us with the very latest detailsof the transition of the EUMETCast dissemination service,not only from one satellite to another but also the change insignal format from S1 to S2 VCM. The news of this transition
has been advertised by EUMETSAT for some time but it
was very informative to have first hand information about
these changes and the implications for amateur, educationaland research groups such as GEO. I did not understand all
the technical details presented but two points did registerwith me: first, that the volume of data being transmitted
via EUMETCAST will increase by a factor of three or four,and secondly that the present S1 service will cease at theend of December 2014. This means that stations wishing
to continue direct reception need to be prepared. The
presentation was illustrated with 34 informative slides, one ofwhich is reproduced at the top of page 4.
Kim-Hui Gaune
This was a very informative presentation by Kim-Hui Gaune,a EUMETSAT User Support Officer. We were informed about
EUMETSAT’s future service enhancements, and plans for newsatellites, which include Meteosat Third Generation (MTG)
and the second generation of their polar orbiting satellite
programmes, showing operational phases at least up to 2039.
Their new web imager service is being beta-tested and image
library entries are now regularly being tweeted. One of KimHui Gaune’s 25 slides relating to key features of this service
is reproduced on page 4. As a postscript here, I noticed on
the international news just a few days ago that contracts
have just been signed for the Metop second generation
satellites.
Ahron Fuchs
This well-illustrated presentation with 15 informative slides,
was given by Aharon Fuchs from Israel, and related to theSpace Band SR1 receiver. Aharon spoke of the commercial
background to the company manufacturing the SR1 receiverwith thousands of units being in regular service around
Europe. The technical specification and practical use of
the receiver has been evaluated by EUMETSAT, with apositive outcome. The receiver is designed to accommodate
foreseeable high speed services.
Rob Alblas
Rob Alblas, a member of the Dutch group Werkgroep
Kunstmanen, gave us a presentation relating to satellite
tracking systems, including antennas, rotors, receivers,
decoders and software for the continued reception of highresolution data from weather satellites such as Meteor
and Fengyun. Rob’s presentation was supported by slides
and, perhaps more importantly, by the demonstration ofequipment on his stand in the exhibition area. One of Rob’s
colleagues, Elmar Bögels is pictured manning the standon page 5, with some of the hardware and display units
needed for their WRX1700 receiver. In front of him is Rob’s

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This slide from Neil Humpage’s presentation summarises Leicester University’s Earth Observation Science programme.

demonstration XY-rotor system. You can also see a small
Meccano XY rotor model on the desk. The box near the rotor
contains the HRPT decoder, which also includes the rotor
driving electronics.
Gordon Sawatzky
Gordon Sawatzky from Novra Technologies Inc (Canada)
provided us with an overview of the Novra company andits international customers, supported by 39 informative
slides. Novra manufactures DVB satellite products withIP data delivery, but of particular interest to EUMETCast
reception is their Novra S300E receiver, which will receive
the anticipated S2 VCM signals from EUMETCast. Novra
have had experience of the migration to DVB S2 signals since2011, and there is continuing international evaluation of
their receivers.
David Taylor
David Taylor’s talk was based on the experience gain during
testing two IP-based EUMETCast receivers. First, he
explained how EUMETCast was sent from Germany to yourstation, noting how a domestic digital TV signal could also bemade to carry data by adding more bits of protection, rather
as a computer CD is like a protected Audio CD. A physicaldemonstration of the difference between broadcast UDP andpoint-to-point TCP ensued, showing why it was important topick up every packet sent, and how that was the receiver’s
responsibility in a broadcast link.
Adding a dedicated network card to your PC wasrecommended. Otherwise, using the new IP-based receivers
was easy, as there was only one change required on the
EUMETCast reception PC, and that was simply altering

the network address. Some specific notes on the testing
followed, and the talk was complementary to that given by
Klaus-Peter Renner earlier in the day.
Special Offer
Each of our speakers was kind enough to leave us a copy of
their visual material with me and I have compiled these on toa CD or memory stick. For readers who were unable to makeit to the symposium, this is a chance to actually look throughthe informative visual materials that were presented on theday. If any reader would like a copy of these presentations
please contact me. If you live in the UK, write to me withyour name and address, enclosing six second class stamps,
and I will send you them on a memory stick. My homeaddress is on page one of this Quarterly. If you reside outside
the UK, email your request to francis@geo-web.org.uk,
and I will send you a disc or memory stick: there will be no
charge. There is no time scale here, but when the memory
sticks run out, everything will then be sent out on discs.
Proposed Visit to Darmstadt in 2015
During the course of the AGM, I asked our members if theywould be interested in a visit to EUMETSAT’s HQ next year.
There was overwhelming support for this idea, so I will try toprogress this with EUMETSAT.
Favoured dates may be July 2-3, 2015 but this is just myinitial suggestion, not a fixed arrangement. Watch this spacefor information relating to any possible Darmstadt visit.
The last part of the day’s programme was the members’
AGM, and this will be reported in the September issue of
GEO Quarterly.

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June 2014

A slide from Klaus-Peter Renner’s presentation, illustrating the definitive scheme for the introduction of the new S2 VCM EUMETCast service.

This slide from Kim-Hui Gaune's presentation summarises the new web imaging service which EUMETSAT are currently beta-testing.

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GEO Quarterly No 42

Attendees registering with Nadine Bell.

Klaus-Peter Renner presenting ‘EUMETCast Europe DVB-S2 Migration’.

Rob Alblas tells about the Werkgroep Kunstmanen trip to Dwingeloo
to use the Radio Telescope for direct MSG LRIT reception.

David Taylor talks about new receivers for DVB-S2.

Elmar Bögels is seen manning the Werkgroep Kunstmanen stand, exhibiting
the group’s X-Y rotator and hardware to operate their WRX1700 receiver.

Two of the speakers, Klaus-Peter Renner (left) and Kim-Hui Gaunein conversation with David Simmons

Neil Humpage of Leicester University presenting‘Science from Meteorological Satellites’.

Kim-Hui Gaune speaking about EUMETSAT’s future service enhancements.

Photo: Cecilia Taylor

Except where otherwise stated, all photographs on this page are courtesy David Taylor

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June 2014

images from the Envisat satellite. To everyone’s great distress, after
ten years of spectacular imaging, the satellite suddenly stopped
working in April 2012 and has not been heard from since. However,
the archive of data gathered during its lifetime is still being used byscientists today, even though no new data is being transmitted.

Quarterly Question 41
My thanks to those readers who contacted me with their answer tothe previous Quarterly Question, which asked for the identification,
name and history of an island in the Arabian Sea / Indian Ocean.
Except for its location, I knew nothing about the island until I
started to research its names and background for myself. I was
fascinated with the information I found, hence the question posedin the Quarterly. I obtained most of my information from Wikipedia
and, for those who wish to read more about this geologically uniqueisland, I suggest this is an informative starting point—or just Google
the name of the island. Particular thanks to Nick T, David Williams
and Ken Morgan (Australia); Andreas Lubnow (Germany); Adrian
Chamberlain, Peter Hardy (England); and Ap van Weeren andHerman ten Grotenhuis (Netherlands) for their informative emails,
which are summarised below.

Two images that I received about two and a half years ago caught
my eye, and are the subject of Quarterly Question 42. Both are imagesof lakes. The question is: ‘What are the names of the two lakes,
and significantly, what are the altitudes of their water surfaces?’
It may help you to identify the lakes by noting that the equatorcrosses one of the lakes, which has a very characteristic outline,
while the other lake is rated as the highest navigable lake in theworld. The two lakes are located on different continents.
Please also include in your answer any other notable features forthese two lakes, relating to their hydrology, geology, history, human
influence, political boundaries or other interesting facts.

SocotraSocotra (also Suqutra or Soqotra) is a small archipelago of fourislands in the Indian Ocean. The people who live there are called
Socotrans, and speak their own Semitic language, Soqotr which
has no written form. However, this language is gradually being
replaced by Arabic.
The group of four islands was ruled by a hereditary Sultan from1511, whose family line ruled more or less continuously till as
recently as 1967. In 1876, Socotra became a British Protectorate,as Britain was looking for a coaling station for ships travelling to andfrom India. In 1967 the Archipelago became absorbed into South
Yemen, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and, whennorth and south Yemen were united in 1990, the islands became
part of the Republic of Yemen. The capital is a town called Hadiboh,
population 8500, which islanders elsewhere consider to be a dirty,
verminous place, although it is likely to have been a prosperous
trading port in ancient times. In recent times, Somali pirates haveused Hadiboh as a refuelling base. The primary occupations of thepeople of Socotra, which has a hot and rather dry climate, havetraditionally been fishing, animal husbandry, and the cultivation ofdates.

Figure 1 - The equator runs through this lake in this 2011 image,

Socotra is considered a jewel of biodiversity with one of the moststriking of Socotra’s plants being the dragon’s blood tree (Dracaena
cinnabari), which is a strange-looking, umbrella-shaped tree.
Much of Socotra’s flora and fauna are unique to the islands, which
support some 700 endemic species found nowhere else on Earth.
The Friends of Soqotra website produces interesting annual
newsletters with colour photographs of the islands called Tayf which
can be download fromhttp://www.friendsofsoqotra.org/Activities/Tayf_newsletter.html

In 2001 a group of Belgian speleologists of the Socotra Karst
Project made a spectacular discovery. Deep inside a huge caveon the island they came across a large number of inscriptions,drawings and archaeological objects that further investigation
showed had been left by sailors who visited Socotra between the
1st century BCE and the 6th century CE.
The nearest any GEO reader has been to Socotra seems tohave been Ap van Weeren, who related how, as a radio-officer inthe Dutch Merchant Navy between 1954 -1960, did sail past theislands.

Quarterly Question 42
In a fit of nostalgia, I was recently browsing through some of theimages which I had archived during those two delightful years
when the Envi-Ham project was retransmitting high resolution

6

Figure 2 - This lake is rated as the highest navigable lake in the world.

The images shown above received from Envisat in late 2011 using
a single channel generating greyscale images. From the raw data I
have stored it would be possible to create a coloured image, but itwould add nothing to the question; hence basic greyscale images
are shown. In both cases the scale of the image is between 400
and 600 miles from left to right.
Please email your answers to Francis Bell at
francis@geo-web.org.uk

before the copy deadline for our next Quarterly, Sunday, August 3.

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GEO Quarterly No 42

GEO Quarterly

Meteorology Manual

The GEO Management TeamA Book Review by Robert Moore

GEO has been bringing its members the GEO Quarterly forover a decade now, and we have been constantly pleased tohear from subscribers just how much they appreciate receiving
their glossy magazines. But much has changed since GEO
was established: from a situation where GEO Quarterly wasalmost the only means through which amateur enthusiasts
could keep abreast of developments in the weather satellite
and Earth imaging fields, it now has to fight its corner against
the advances of readily available information on the Internet.

This is another beautifully presented and handsomely publishedbook from Storm Dunlop. But a ‘practical guide to the weather’is not exactly how the volume seems to this reviewer. Part 1: The
Atmosphere, assumes the reader can plunge fairly quickly into
the analysis of global circulation and pressure systems. As such
this section is a welcome refresher course for anyone with aninterest in the weather, and who is familiar with meteorologicalterms, but it’s a section that takes no prisoners. Dunlop’s earlier
Weather and Forecasting (with Francis Wilson, 1982) leads thenewcomer more gently into these topics.

... the Future... the practical guide to the weather

We have reported previously in our pages of publications
ceasing in paper format and being made available only aselectronic documents on the Internet, or as PDF downloads.
The most recent example was EUMETSAT’s Image newsletter,as mentioned by Francis Bell in last December’s Quarterly.
Here at GEO we face two problems: first, most of the content
of GEO Quarterly these days is being pre-empted by theInternet; second, GEO membership has dropped to little morethan half of what it was at its peak (just 270 at the start of thisyear). Publishing GEO Quarterly in its present form remains
financially viable, but only marginally. Should the membershipfall much further, subscriptions would necessarily have toincrease, something we really want to avoid.
The situation is also compounded by the fact that there is little
scope for new developments nowadays, and this is reflected
in greatly reduced article contributions from our members.
In the past it was possible to design and construct our own
receivers, antennas and so on: now, all the hardware consistsof commercial off-the-shelf items. There is simply very muchless to write about. But because a paper magazine is printed
in 8-page blocks, lack of reader input frequently leaves the
Editor struggling to ‘invent’ interesting content to complete thepage-count. Moving to an electronic format solves this issue,
as the final number of pages is immaterial.
What Next?
The GEO Management Team met last March to address the
future of GEO Quarterly, and two major decisions were taken:• GEO Quarterly will continue in paper format till the end of2014.
• From the start of 2015, the March, June and September
Quarterlies will be issued only as electronic (PDF)
documents, but the December edition will also be
provided to every reader as a printed magazine, as atpresent.
This will have an effect on current and future subscriptions.
The remaining issues for 2014 will remain available in bothelectronic and paper format. From 2015 onwards, the first
three issues will be available in electronic format only, with thelast issue of the year being available in both electronic andpaper format.
The existing UK/Europe/Rest of World subscription rates will
be replaced with a single rate. Existing members who havealready paid for a full years paper subscription will have their
existing membership extended.
While we appreciate that most readers will be sad to see theend of regular printed Quarterlies, we hope we have arrived
at a solution that is the best compromise. The main bonus
is that, of course, the cost of GEO Membership will drop
considerably, to a figure we anticipate to be in the range of£10 - £15 for everyone.

By contrast, Part 3: Observing the Weather and Forecasting,is a rather simplistic description of observing and forecastingthat could be put in the hands of any newcomer to the studyof weather, but quickly skimmed by the enthusiast. So theintended readership is not quite clear. That said, the first two
parts of The Meteorology Manual nevertheless comprise an
excellent reference book.
Of course, it goes without saying, that a Storm Dunlop bookis always full of beautiful pictures: Dunlop is our pre-eminent
weather-photographer. Given his interest in light and colour,
it is no surprise that his chapter on light, colours and opticalphenomena is a very thorough treatment of the topic, covering
it in greater detail than the often rather marginal comments
found in many weather books; though not in such detail as inhis How to Identify Weather (2002) . Each one of these opticalphenomena tells us something about atmospheric conditions
aloft—though like many of us I guess, I often just stand andstare.
Chapter 6: Clouds is an especially useful one because, whilst
the author has given us useful descriptions of cloud structuresin previous books, this chapter deals at some length on theprocesses by which one cloud structure transforms intoanother (and Nature getting the casual observer thoroughly
confused). This part of the book may be particularly interesting
to GEO readers. Whilst most of us observe clouds directly fromthe ground upwards, we are also privileged to observe themfrom satellites downwards. Certainly, when zooming in on
animations—either in high resolution or in rapid scan—we see
clouds forming and reforming, and weather structures changing.
Identifying one cloud either from the ground or space is easy
enough, but multiple clouds moving and changing are not easy
to interpret. So Chapter 6 of The Meteorological Manual will be ofvalue in helping us to understand what we are watching. It is achapter that will repay reading more than once.
One niggle, directed perhaps at the publishers rather than theauthor, is that such a lavishly illustrated book needs special
attention to the placement of text. On a number of occasions
I turned over a page to find I had missed a little block of text
beneath an illustration on the previous page. As the publisher of
the Spitfire Restoration Manual, Haynes really ought to be a bit
more careful.
Overall, the Meteorology Manual is a good book—worth the pricefor the pictures alone—and worthy of a place in every schooland public library and, I’m sure, the bookshelves of many GEO
members.
Details
Meteorology Manual: the practical guide to the weather
Storm Dunlop
Haynes Publishing, 2014
ISBN 978 0 85733 272 1, 172 pp £21.99

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June 2014

Keith Fraser

This Terra MODIS image dating from 16:50 UT on February 19
this year shows a very rare example of Lakes Superior, Huron
and Erie frozen over, with Lake Michigan about to join them. Lake
Ontario does not freeze because it is deep, and upwelling brings
warm water to disturb the colder surface. Yet, even so, ice is just8

beginning to accumulate at the east end of this lake. You may needto refer to your atlas to find Lake Erie, as in this image it blends inwith the frozen tundra!

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Image: LANCE-MODIS/NASA/GSFC

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NASA Earth Observatory

Bouvet Island, imaged by NASA’s Landsat-8 satellite on May 26, 2013
Image: Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using Landsat data from the USGS

Located in the South Atlantic Ocean
between Africa, South America andAntarctica, the uninhabited, 49 km2 shield
volcano of Bouvet Island is one of themost remote islands in the world. The
nearest large land mass is the Princess
Astrid Coast of Queen Maud Land,
Antarctica—1,700 kilometres to the south
while the closest habitation is on Tristan
da Cunha, 2,260 km to the northwest.
On May 26, 2013, the Operational
Land Imager on Landsat 8 acquired
this naturally coloured image of Bouvet
Island. Permanent thick ice covers morethan 90% of the island year round, theChristensen glacier on the north sideand the Posadowsky glacier to the south.
Although the ice reaches the coast as
steep cliffs in many places, there are also

10

many beaches of black volcanic sandaround the island.
The most prominent feature of Bouvet
is the Wilhelmplataet caldera, the large
circular depression on its western side,which formed following a volcanic
eruption when land collapsed into an
empty magma chamber. The most recent
eruption on Bouvet took place around two
thousand years ago.
Bouvet island, the southernmost extensionof the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, is located near
the triple junction between the African,
South American, and Antarctic plates.
Its highest point is Olav Peak (780 m),
which can be seen midway across theisland near the northern coast casting longshadows into the caldera.
www.geo-web.org.uk

Location of Bouvet Island

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The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

This digital photograph, taken while flying westward over Bouvet Island, was acquired during ISS Expedition‑17 on September 13, 2008.
Credit: Astronaut digital photograph ISS017-E-16161 / NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

Although not particularly high, Olav’s remoteness—and the factthat it had never been climbed—inspired filmmaker Jason Rodito organise an expedition which successfully attained the summitof its broad, gently sloping cone in 2012. The prominent Kapp
Valdivia, a cape on Bouvet’s northern coastline, is a peninsula
formed by a lava dome built from viscous lavas with a high silica
content.
Bouvet Island was discovered by the French Captain LozierBouvet in 1739 and was subsequently visited by representativesof different nations several times during the nineteenth century.
The island was annexed by the Kingdom of Norway in 1927
following a Norwegian expedition’s stay there. Bouvet isuninhabited, and its extremely harsh environment precludes
anything but short-duration stays such as the manned weather
station that was operated for two months during 1978 and 1979.

Since the 1970s, Bouvet Island has been frequently visited by
Norwegian Antarctic expeditions, and in 1977 an automatedweather station was constructed there. .Nevertheless, the island
does support some flora, though this is restricted to lichens,mosses and liverworts. Fauna consists almost exclusively ofseabirds (the southern fulmar, numerous species of petrel andalbatross and large breeding colonies of Macaroni, Chinstrap
and Adélie penguins). The only non-bird species are theSouthern Elephant Seal and Antarctic Fur Seal.
References
1 Bouvet Island, South Atlantic Ocean
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=35526
2 A Thousand Miles from Nowhere
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=83203

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GEO Quarterly No 42

The Group for Earth Observation

June 2014

NASA Dawn Mission News

This image, obtained by the framing camera aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows the south pole of the
giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image
originated during a collision with another asteroid or by internal processes early in the asteroid’s history. The
image was recorded when Dawn was 2,700 kilometres above Vesta, and has a resolution of approximately
260 metres per pixel.
The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while UCLA has
overall responsibility for the Dawn mission science.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/pia14712.html

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www.geo-web.org.uk

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The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

A NASA Earth Observatory Report
The sea has protected Venice since the fifth century, when people
moved to the fish-shaped islands of Rialto for safety from mainland
invaders. Over the next thirteen centuries, the seafaring city-state
grew in power and strength. The art, architecture, and history
amassed in the small ‘floating city’ of Venice has earned it a placeon the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
But the tide has turned, and the sea that once protected Venice
now threatens it. Nestled in the Venetian Lagoon, the 118 low-lying
islands of modern-day Venice are separated from the Adriatic Sea
by a 45 kilometre chain of barrier islands. The Adriatic connects tothe lagoon via three inlets—the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia.
The sea now imperils Venice because of three conflated issues:
groundwater pumping and offshore gas drilling have caused the city
to subside; sea level has been rising; and natural tidal protections
like mud flats and marshes have been disrupted over the past
century. River courses have been made rigid, inlets have been
widened, and the lagoon has been dredged to create shipping
channels; adjustments to make boating and shipping safer havehelped make the land more vulnerable.
Venice now regularly experiences Acqua Alta (high water), when
the tide inundates the streets and squares, menaces the historicarchitecture and forces citizens to don galoshes. In 1900, such
events occurred ten times per year. Now, Acqua Alta happens morethan 60 times annually.

Figure 1
The Venice lagoon prior to MOSE developments, in 2000.

In November 1966, two days of heavy rain coincided with hightides, a static low-pressure system and a severe Sirocco wind todrive two metres of water into Venice. The flood destroyed millionsof dollars of artwork, wrecked businesses and left thousands ofcitizens homeless. The event prompted many people to think thatthe city was doomed unless some sort of intervention were made.
After decades of debate, construction on a major engineering
project called MOSE began in 2003. The project acronym stands
for MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico (Experimental
Electromechanical Module), and alludes to the parting of the
Red Sea by Moses. The concept behind MOSE is to temporarily
separate the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea when
unusually high tides occur through a series of 78 gates that seal thelagoon’s three inlets.
Each 300 tonne gate measures approximately 30 metres tall by
20 metres wide and 5 metres thick. During normal tides, each ofthese massive gates lies on a concrete foundation on the seabedwith one end hinged to steel and concrete pilings. When hightide exceeds 87 centimetres above mean sea level, compressed
air is pumped into the gates until they slowly pivot upwards, a
process that takes about one hour. In a high-tide event, the gateswill probably remain in place for four to five hours until the waters
subside; then they will be filled with water and lowered back to theirseabed berths.
The natural colour Landsat images above show some of the
MOSE engineering efforts that are visible above the water-line
near the Lido Inlet. Figure 1 was acquired on June 20, 2000 by
the Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ on NASA’s Landsat-7 satellite;
figure 2, from the Operational Land Imager on Landsat-8, dates
from September 4, 2013.
In 2013, a curved breakwater stands just south of the inlet’s
southern jetty. On the lagoon side of the Lido Inlet, a new manmade island has appeared, housing the buildings and plants that
operate the gates, which le underwater in two arrays to either side

Figure 2
Some of the MOSE engineering efforts visible above water in 2013of the island. On the north side of the inlet, a man-made harbour
for small vessels includes a small lock system that allows boats topass from the lagoon to the sea when the gates are raised.
Since the beginning of MOSE construction, five million cubic metresof sediment have been excavated from areas adjacent to thelagoon’s three inlets. The $8.8 billion dollar project has encounteredsome scientific, environmental, and political objections about
disrupting the natural water exchange between the lagoon and
Adriatic.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon
using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

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GEO Quarterly No 42

The Group for Earth Observation

June 2014

A NASA Earth Observatory Report

Sentinel-1A, the first of two SAR satellites that the European Space
Agency is adding to its fleet, launched successfully on April 3, 2014.
Its twin, Sentinel-1B will orbit on the opposite side of Earth so that,between them, the two satellites can image the entire surface of theplanet in six days. The satellites will be used to map sea ice andglacial ice, monitor the wind and waves on the ocean, and detectchanges in the shape of the land. SAR instruments are usefulfor disaster mapping since they can see oil slicks on the ocean’ssurface, floods through clouds, and the deformation of the groundafter a landslide or earthquake.
Sentinel-1A carries an advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
instrument, which makes it particularly well-suited for measuringice. Unlike passive instruments that simply record reflected oremitted energy, SAR instruments actively direct their own energy,
in the form of microwaves, towards Earth’s surface, then measure
those waves that are reflected back. Because microwaves are not
impeded by clouds, SAR can acquire images at any time of the day
or night, and through clouds: so SAR can image the ground evenon a cloudy day.
The image presented here is one the first acquired by Sentinel-1A,and was received just ten days following launch, before the satellite
had actually reached its final operational orbit. In this image, bright14

icebergs spread across Pine Island Bay, resembling shards ofbroken glass. The ‘bergs appear to be crumbling off the snout of
Thwaites Glacier, one of the fastest-moving glaciers in Antarctica, asmall part of which is visible at lower right of the image.
Differences in brightness in this image are an indication of how welldifferent ice surfaces reflect microwave energy. Sea ice contains
inclusions of seawater, which scatter the microwave energy sothat relatively little is returned to the satellite. As a result, sea ice
is dark. Glacial ice from Antarctica—and this includes the icebergs
that break off from it—is composed of compacted snow. Air bubbles
trapped in this ice reflect microwave energy extremely well, with theresult that much more of the microwave signal makes it back to thesatellite: thus this ice appears bright. Open water absorbs the radar
signal, so it appears black.
The reflected microwaves also show the structure of the ice
surface. The glacier—essentially a densely packed river of ice—isbumpy and cracked. The sea ice is blotchy, with dark-colored thin
patches and brighter veins of thicker ice. A brush of gray on thewater hints at a very thin layer of ice forming as cooler autumn
temperatures come to Antarctica.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Image ©2014 European Space Agency (ESA)

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

Front CoverAfter months of dreary winter stormy
weather, high pressure finally reachedwestern Europe in early March. This
splendid image showing the Iberianpeninsula completely free of significant
cloud was acquired by the MODIS
instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite on
March 8.
Image: LANCE-MODIS/NASA/GSFC

Inside Front CoverMike Stevens sent in this 12:55 UT NOAA 19
image from April 15, showing the UK
enjoying a largely sunny day. The image wasparticularly interesting to your Editor, who
spent that day walking from Valthe to Exloo
in the Dutch province of Drenthe. Broken
cloud can be seen forming over the North
Sea and sweeping southwards over the
Netherlands. It proved an interesting day:very breezy, and alternatively sunny andovercast in 5- to 15-minute spells, with thecloud sweeping past rapidly and producing
the occasional short, sharp shower.
Image © EUMETCAST 2014

Inside Back Cover
It’s May 3, the Saturday of the May Day
holiday weekend, and the weather is kind
to England. A weak Atlantic depression
lurks to the west in this afternoon image
from NOAA 19, as parts of the country bask intemperatures of 20°C.
Image: NOAA Class Archive

Back CoverNASA’s Terra satellite captured thisfascinating cloud pattern over the remote
Indian Ocean island of Kerguelen on May
21, 2014.
Page 9André T’Kindt acquired this attractive APT
image of the eastern Atlantic from the 14:14
UT NOAA 19 pass on April 8 this year.
Page 21
This remarkable image of Europe on a clear,largely cloud-free night, was acquired by the
Suomi-NPP VIIRS Day-Night Band at 01:30 UT
on March 13, 2014. In addition to the lights
of cities, illumination from the Moon allows
one to visualise cloud and snow on the Alps.
Besides the city lights of all the larger cities
and towns, it is also possible to distinguishsome of the land features (such as the Alps)or clouds, illuminated by an almost fullMoon.
Image: Martin Setvak, Czech Hydrometeorological Institure (CHI)

Page 29
Mike Stevens provided this revealing
NOAA-19 image from May 23 this year
showing the Caspian and Aral seas.
It appears that the eastern lobe of theSouthern Aral Sea has now totally dried up,
a shocking revelation.
Image © EUMETSAT 2014www.geo-web.org.uk

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June 2014

Mike Stevens
This is not an article recommending you to go out and buy this unit.
It’s not an article saying this is the best thing since sliced bread.
I’m not even saying this is going to work. This is simply about trying
to keep alive a hobby that I and many others enjoy. I felt, rightly
or wrongly, that there was just not enough information forthcoming
to allow me to decide on which direction to go. Our friend, David
Taylor, has been testing a unit that sounded complicated by its
nature to link into the Network, and at a price of around £400 which
I felt was going to be beyond the pockets of many members.
So I decided to make some investigations of my own, contacted the
TBS Technologies [1] company in Singapore, and started a dialogue
with them regarding how I could receive these new EUMETCast
DVB-S2 VCM transmissions. TBS they were very helpful, and told me
the problems that had been passed to them. That’s how I came incontact with our friend in France, Jean-Pierre, who had been testing
two products from the company for several months: the TBS-5925
USB Box and the TBS-6925 PCI Card. Jean-Pierre had put in a lotof work and had a lot of success, especially with the PCI card.

The illustration above shows the TBS-6925 card and the one below
the unit installed into the PC.

I emailed Jean-Pierre several times and he sent me a lot of useful
information which proved very helpful, and it was at that point that
I decided to try the PCI card. I decided to volunteer my services to
TBS in testing a TBS-6925 card here in the UK, and I was preparedto take a gamble and pay for a unit; but to my surprise, they offered
me a unit free of charge to test provided I kept them informed ofmy progress and reported any problems with DVB-S and DVB-S2. I
agreed of course. It was an amazing opportunity.
The unit was promptly dispatched by Singapore Post and took
seventeen days to reach me. I had to pay VAT of £3.58 + £8.00
Overseas Handling Charge because the card came from outside
the EU Zone; so I paid the money at the Post Office and was given
my parcel.
The unit was well packed and was wrapped in anti-static bag. I
was particularly pleased to find that the unit came with an extra
mounting bracket so that it could be fitted into the latest small tower
computers. In my case, I left the original mounting bracket on as it
was going into a standard size PC—so a good start.
My first installation was into my Windows XP PC where it proved
very easy to fit. Once in place it was a case of loading the software,
which I noted to be the latest release dated February 2014, thesame version as Jean-Pierre had sent me. I loaded it and it worked
fine, but I have to say that you do need at least 4 GB of RAM tohave all your Satsignal software running.
Next, I tried the card in my Windows 7 PC and installed everything
again in the same way as before. No problems were encounteredas all the software was installed. Set-up was easy, and on thisPC I have 8GB of memory, so there were no problems running all
programs.
So far, with DVB-S transmissions, the card is working very well. I
have been monitoring for loss of segments but there are none. And
as far as loss of Packets is concerned, and there are a lot fewer
Packets lost using the TBS-6925 than with my DVB World unit, sothat’s a bonus. I was able to run MSG Data Manager, Metop A/B
and MODIS plus all the world Satellite Data with no problems. One
other point is that the Quality and Signal Strength on the TBS-6925
are far better than with my DVB World box, both well up.

16

The final question is: ‘will this card work with the new transmissions
from EUMETCast on DVB-S2’? That, of course, is the final test, andwhat all my efforts have been about. Since I installed the TBS-6925
into my Windows 7 PC, the company advised me of two software
updates, which I installed—and the new up-dates have worked
with no problems. The guys in Singapore advised me that all the
problems were software based and not due to the hardware, andthey are keen to sort out problems very quickly.
I was told to be careful not to mislead readers, because a TBS
unit tested by EUMETSAT had failed, but that was before thesoftware up-dates and that’s no longer the case. Of course, what I
have described are only my test results. You must draw your own
conclusions. I am sure that between JP, Ernst and myself, one of us
will succeed in getting this unit to work and give the members a unit
to receive the new transmissions that will cost below £200. That iscertainly what we are aiming for.
I hope my next article, which will be a lot more descriptive than
this one, will contain all the information on receiving the newtransmissions in DVB-S2, as we need an alternative to theexpensive models that are being recommended by EUMETSAT at
the moment. All we need is a receiver that will receive the Basic
Service. If this does not work then we shall have to look aroundagain. Whichever way this goes, I will let readers know.
Reference
1 TBS Technologies

www.geo-web.org.uk- http://www.tbsdtv.com/

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

John Tellick

This image, acquired by the Advanced Visible and Near Infrared
Radiometer on Japan’s ALOS satellite on November 23, 2010,shows the 40 kilometre diameter Richat Structure, a giant,geological wonder located in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania.
Easier to observe from space than from the ground, this bullseye feature has been a familiar landmark to astronauts since
the earliest missions, having first been observed from space byGemini-4 astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White in June 1965.
Initially interpreted as the result of an asteroid or meteorite
impact because of its high degree of circularity,the structure
is now known to be a highly symmetrical and deeply eroded
geologic dome. Concentric bands of resistant quartzite rocks
form ridges, with valleys of less-resistant sedimentary rock
between them. Despite extensive field and laboratory studies, nocredible evidence has been found for the shock metamorphismand deformation that would be indicative of an extraterrestrial
impact.

The dark area on the left of the image is part of the Adrar
plateau of sedimentary rock which stands some 200 metresabove the surrounding desert sands. A large area covered bysand dunes, called an erg, can be seen at lower right, whilesand can be seen encroaching into the structure’s southern side.
On the southern side of the bulls-eye, can be seen individual
trees and bushes as tiny dots. These follow a river-like structurethat appears to have been dry when this image was acquired, afew weeks after the rainy season. Some areas to the south andeast of the Richat appear to be covered with temporary lakes,
which are dry for most of the year.
This geological feature will be very familiar to members
who regularly download EUMETCast NOAA-19, and Metop
imagery—though not in such high resolution. It joins the equallyfamiliar feature of the Manicouagan meteor impact site inQuebec, especially visible under snow in winter.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Image © JAXA/ESA

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The Group for Earth Observation

June 2014

Raydel Abreu Espinet, CM2ESP
cm2esp@gmail.com
When radio enthusiasts talk about solar
activity and its effects, people usually
think about High Frequency Radio. So,
by consequence, we usually don’t pay
too much attention to its impact on
VHF and satellite downlinks. However,
our closest star may have one or two
surprises waiting for us, as we aregoing to find out in the rest of this shortarticle.
But first, let’s take a very short solar
astronomy overview. From time totime, small dark areas are seen on thesolar disc. These areas are sunspots,
temporary phenomena, producedby high magnetic activity within the
sun’s photosphere, and creating areasof reduced surface temperature [1].
When the energy stored in twisted
magnetic fields above a sunspot issuddenly released, a huge explosion
occurs on the Sun, producing a Solar
Flare, accompanied by a burst ofradiation over a very wide range ofthe electromagnetic spectrum (fromradio waves up to X-rays and Gamma
radiation).
X-Ray flux monitors installed in the
GOES satellite fleet maintain a recordof the flux of these X-Rays and allow
scientists to classify them [2]. Radioastronomers also detect and study
those emissions in the radio bands
with radio-telescopes. But this radio
emission is strong at low frequencies
and decrease gradually at higher
frequencies. That’s why, at relatively
high frequencies (above 100 MHz), moregain is required to observe these events,
and radio-telescopes usually use big
Yagi antennas phased together for VHF/
UHF and parabolic dishes for gigahertz
ranges. But particular very severe flare
events can be strong enough to be
detected with simple equipment, andcan in some cases even disrupt andbadly affect communications here on
Earth.

However, after checking the
SDR# window, it was clearthat the satellite signal was
still strong, around -10 dB,
a normal value comparablewith many previous
recorded passes. But thenoise floor was between
12 dB and 15 dB, higher
than the usual -50 dB.

Flare
During March 29, 2014 at 17:44 UT, I
started to record a 12° NOAA-19 passto the east of my location, using ahomebrew QFH antenna in conjunction
with an old preamp and a RTL-SDR
dongle running the SDR# software(figure 2). Just a couple of minutes
into the pass I noticed a huge increasein the noise coming from the received
audio. At first I thought this was fading
due to an obstruction in the line ofsight—maybe due to a nearby building.

Making use ofSpectrumLab [3] audio
spectrum analyser software,
the incoming audio wasstudied: it showed nosigns of the common 60 Hz
AC noise that sometimes
occurs in highly populated
urban areas such as where
I live. A few seconds later,
the noise decreased alittle bit, only to return
again a couple of minutes

18

Figure 1 - The decoded NOAA-19 audio and resulting picture, in this case showing only the IR Channel 4.
The three solar radio bursts which affected the image are indicated.

www.geo-web.org.uk

later. Again, there was noevidence of AC noise, anda quick inspection of thereal-time picture recording
in WXtoImg (figure 1)
showed interference bands,
but not with the typicalcharacteristics of thenoise produced by internal
combustion engines fromcars and motorcycles.
So, a little bit baffled after athird noise surge occurred
several seconds after thesecond one had subsided,
I continued the recording,regretting the bad luckof having a noisy picture
without explanation.
Nearly fifteen minutes
later, while checking myemails, I noticed an alert

Figure 2
A homebrew QFH antenna
and its 136-138 MHz band
preamp attached.

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The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

Further Studies
In order to be able to extract some more information about
this solar radio emission event, I tried to develop a method
to study the demodulated audio from the NOAA-19 FM
transmission.
Considering that a strong FM signal when demodulated hassome frequency components which are ‘quiet’ in the specificregions where signal audio is not present. If there is a way toremove the satellite audio components from the recording,then the quiet sections represent the normal satellite signal
and the ‘noisy’ parts are proportional to the decrease in thesignal to noise ratio of the incoming signal and therefore
equivalent to the increase of solar radio emission.

Figure 3A 6 hour 1-minute data of the X-Ray flux measured by GOES-15.
This shows an X1 event with a maximum at 17:48 UTImage Credit, NOAA.

issued by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)
email service to which I am subscribed [4]. This informed of
an X-Ray event in excess of M5 detected by the GOES-15
observatory. Being intrigued by such a coincidence, I quickly
checked the real-time X-Ray plot from SWPC [5]. The graphic
clearly showed that an X1 Event had occurred, reaching amaximum at 17:48 UT. The noise that appeared in my imageat 137.100 MHz fitted well within the time range (figure 3).
So now, without doubt, it was clear that the noise that badly
affected the received picture quality from NOAA-19 was
produced by a solar radio burst [6], an important reminderthat our nearest star is not a passive neighbour, and cansometimes affect the satellite downlink when we less expect
it.
Usually, for amateur radio-astronomy, a very wide AM
demodulator is used without automatic gain control. But
there is currently no method to predict the occurrence of asolar flare. Therefore, this particular event was only detectedwith less efficient conditions because it incredibly strong at
VHF frequencies, and happened while a satellite pass was
being recorded.

Now, with a plan of action identified, the audio recording
made by WXtoImg was processed by the free audio editing
tool Audacity [7]. A notch filter on 2400 Hz was appliedin order to remove the video information from the signal.
The filter was as wide as required to remove also the sync
pulses from both transmitted channels. The resulting signal
contained only the frequency components between the rangeof 0‑1200 Hz and 4000-5000 Hz. The upper limit of 5000 Hz
is imposed by the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem [8]because the recording sample rate of WXtoImg was 11025 Hz.
An additional amplification of the resulting audio was done toboost the peak amplitude up to -1.5 dB to enhance the audio
features (figure 4).
Now, using only the relevant parts of the recording, the audio
was played while a simple but yet very useful tool for amateur
radio-astronomy named Radio SkyPipe [9] from RadioSky
Publishing was used to record the audio mixer output. The
recording from SkyPipe produced a graphic consisting of
8 data samples per second, each sample corresponding to theaverage of 5 measured values of mean audio amplitude at aninterval of 25 milliseconds (figure 5).
The analysis of the graphic shows three peaks from the main
solar radio burst event. The studied burst shows a peakmaximum near 17:46:20 UT. Two spikes from local noise
sources are also present but they are unrelated to the solar
event.
But was it a really strong event? The answer is yes, as shownin the following table compiled by NOAA’s SWPC and sentby its email services [4]. The event in question is clearlyContinued on page 19

Figure 4 - The filtered audio after removing most of the satellite signal in SpectrumLab

Figure 5 - The graphic from Radio SkyPipe. Three major solar bursts are easily identified. There are also two spikes related to local noise sources.

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June 2014

An edited NASA Earth Observatory Report

Image 1 - Flooding around the River Parrett immediately southeast ofBridgwater on February 16, 2014.

Image 2 - This image shows the same stretch of the River Parrett as it
appeared before the flooding, on November 4, 2013.

The Somerset Levels, a low-lying tract of land in southwestern
England stands just a few metres above sea level: in fact, some of
the lowest areas actually dip below sea level. A natural marshland,
the Levels have been drained and reclaimed for agriculture sinceat least the Middle Ages, but predominantly in the 18th and 19th
centuries. However, the marshy character of the land still reasserts
itself on occasion.

On February 16, brown, sediment-laden water covered large tractsof farmland just to the southeast of the town of Bridgwater—which
remained dry, but villages such as Moorland, Westonzoyland,
Burrowbridge and Othery were wholly or partially flooded andaccessible only by boat. Neither the King’s Sedgemoor Drain, an
artificial channel which diverts overflow from the River Cary into theRiver Parrett, nor pumping efforts by the authorities were able tostem the rising waters enough to prevent severe flooding.

During the three month period from December 2013 till February
2014, a series of storms dropped 632 millimetres of rain on
southern England, the wettest winter since records began in 1910.
Since January, both the River Parrett and River Tone have spilledover their banks and flooded large areas of the Levels, and by midFebruary an estimated 17,000 hectares (66 square miles) and 150
homes had been swamped.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth-Observing-1
satellite acquired image 1 on February 16, 2014: image 2 shows
the Somerset Levels as seen by Landsat-8 on November 4, 2013.

20

Although the Somerset Levels have a long history of flooding, thislatest episode has re-ignited a debate about the usefulness ofdredging, a process that involves deepening and widening river
channels by removing silt. Some observers argue that dredging theriver more regularly would prevent damaging floods from occurring.
Others say that regular dredging does little to prevent floods,
causes ecological damage to ecosystems, and is too expensive topursue.
NASA images by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided
courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

www.geo-web.org.uk

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

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GEO Quarterly No 42

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GEO Quarterly No 42

The Group for Earth Observation

June 2014

John Tellick
It seems that the British have aconsiderable preoccupation with theweather—always a topic of conversation.
This is quite understandable given thefact we can experience '4 seasons in acouple of days' owing to our location.
Britain is of course an island, with thevast Atlantic Ocean to the southwest,
the Arctic not that far away to thenorth and the land mass of continental
Europe to our south and east. The
direction from which the wind arrives
influences our temperatures—both in
winter and summer—considerably.
Considering 'how far north' we are,winter temperatures are higher than
one might expect given our latitude,
thanks to winds from the warm mid
Atlantic and the influence of the Gulf
Stream. And summers can be fairly
benign. However, should a northeasterly or easterly wind arrive in
winter, the temperatures plummet,
especially if the wind comes 'straightout of Siberia.' In summer, with southeasterly to southerly winds, thetemperature can soar.
The Wettest WinterHaving just experienced the wettest
winter on record, and perhaps thestormiest, with 30 storms from mid
November to March (15 of them severe)
thanks to the jet stream 'being in thewrong place', March suddenly turned
into early summer. Temperatures
reached 20°C in the southeast on
several days as a large area of highpressure developed over Europe as
the jet stream at last moved to thenorthwest, keeping Atlantic depressions
at bay (figures 5,6).
At this time of the year, the seasaround Britain are still cold, and sea
mist can be quite common during aperiod of settled warm weather. This
was the case for several days in early
March, leading to a big difference intemperature between the coast and justa few miles inland. I was down on the
East Sussex coast on March 14 when,just a few miles inland, it was sunnywith clear skies and the temperature a
comfortable 17°C. However, on Hastings
seafront it was cold, dismal, windy
and very foggy with a temperature of
only 7°C.
The sea mist along the coasts of East
Anglia, Belgium, Netherlands and bothsides of the English Channel in early

22

Figure 1 - A Metop-A image from March 14 showing coastal fog bordering the English Channel

March shows up well on the Metopsatellite image above (figure 1) with
regions with clearer skies just inland.
It’s interesting to compare this image
with one from a similar latitude acrossthe Atlantic in Canada's Newfoundland,
Ottawa and Labrador provinces whichwere still in the grip of winter (figure 2).
Air Pollution
Moving on a couple of weeks, we foundthe warm settled conditions in southand southeast England leading to local
air pollution and poor air quality.
This situation was compounded bypollution from the near continent—
Germany, Holland and Belgium—blown
in on an easterly airflow. Added tothis, dust from the Sahara, generated
by high winds over the desert, wasblown across western Europe by southsoutheasterly winds. The outcome
was that London and many parts ofsoutheast England suffered severe
levels of pollution and poor air quality
for several days, while motorists foundtheir cars covered by a layer of Saharandust, particularly following lightshowers of rain.

www.geo-web.org.uk

A EUMETSAT image from March
29 (figure 3) shows the origin of the
Saharan dust storm, while the DEFRA/Met Office image (figure 4) shows the air
quality indexes.
March temperatures in southeast
England were considerably above theseasonal average during the day but,with clear skies at night, some areas
experienced frost and foggy mornings.
A brief period of seasonally averagetemperatures followed till the region
again experienced a couple of weeks ofsunny weather in early April, thoughsome days were tempered by cold
northeast and easterly winds. Owing to
reduced ozone levels in the atmosphere,
sun worshippers were warned of highUV radiation levels—unusually so forthis time of the year.
In southeast England, bluebells weremost profuse and beautiful in woods
and gardens a full month earlier thannormal.
Is it any wonder 'the weather' is such a
topic of conversation?

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

Figure 3 - A Meteosat imulti-channel image showing thedust blowing from the Sahara on March 29.
Image © EUMETSAT 2014

Figure 2 - A Metop-B image from March 27 showing eastern Canada and the USA still firmly in
winter’s icy grasp.
Image © EUMETSAT 2014

Figure 4 - Air Pollution Index Map for March 29
credit: Met Office/DEFRA

Figure 6 - A NOAA 19 image showing high pressure over Europe on March 9, 2014.
Image © EUMETSAT 2014www.geo-web.org.uk

Figure 5 - Chart showing the Jet Stream position on
March 11, allowing high pressure to build to its south
Credit: NetWeather.tv

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GEO Quarterly No 42

The Group for Earth Observation

June 2014

ESA: Space in Images

This image over the west coast of the Netherlands is one of theearly radar scans by the Sentinel-1A satellite, which was launchedon April 3, 2014. The satellite’s advanced radar can provide
imagery under all weather conditions and regardless of whether it
is day or night. It can scan Earth’s surface in a range of different
modes, enabling it to monitor large areas in lower resolution or tozoom in on a smaller region for a sharper view.
Visible features in this image include the port of IJmuiden at upper
left, sitting on the Noordzee Kanaal, which stretches across thescene to Amsterdam at centre-right. The Amsterdam canal ringshows up well as do the runways of Schiphol airport immediately tothe southwest of the city (at bottom centre of the image). The largecity between Amsterdam and the North Sea is Haarlem.

24

Sentinel-1’s radar will be used for monitoring changes in agriculturalland cover—important information for areas with intensive
agriculture like the Netherlands, and surveillance of the marine
environment, including monitoring oil spills, detecting ships formaritime security, and measuring wave height.
This image was acquired on April 15, with the radar operating at aresolution of about 10 m/pixel.
Sentinel-1A is the first in a fleet of satellites being developed forEurope’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. The
satellite is not yet in its operational orbit, but early images like thishave given us a taste of what’s to come.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Image © ESA

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

A NASA Earth Observatory Report
Data from ocean-observing satellites and other ocean sensors
indicate that El Niño conditions appear to be developing in theequatorial Pacific Ocean. Conditions in May 2014 bear somesimilarities to those of May 1997, a year that brought one of themost potent El Niño events of the 20th century.
During an El Niño, easterly trade winds in the Pacific falter andallow giant waves of warm water—known as Kelvin waves—todrift across from the western Pacific toward South America.
Surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific become
significantly warmer than normal, altering weather patterns
and affecting fisheries along the west coasts of the Americas.
El Niño can also have a significant influence on weather andclimate world-wide.
The maps show the ten-day average of sea surface height
centred on May 2, 1997 (figure 1), and May 3, 2014 (figure 2).
Shades of red and orange indicate where the water is warmer
and above normal sea level; shades of blue-green show where
sea level and temperatures are lower than average. Normal sealevel conditions appear in white. The 1997 map was assembled
from data collected by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, while the2014 data comes from the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/
Jason 2 satellite. Observations confirm that a deep pool of warm
water has been sliding eastward since January.
The height of the sea surface is a good indicator of the amountof heat stored in the water. As the ocean warms, its surface
rises due to thermal expansion; as it cools, its falls again.
Above-normal sea surface heights in the equatorial Pacificindicate El Niño conditions, while below-normal heights are
termed La Niña.

Figure 1 - Pacific Ocean Sea-surface map from May 2, 1997

The current situation in the tropical Pacific Ocean looks similar
to that in early 1997, which led to one of the strongest El Niño
events ever observed, with extreme weather impacts on several
continents. Then, North America had one of its warmest andwettest winters on record, particularly in California and Florida;
Peru, Mexico, and the rest of Central and South America
endured devastating rainstorms and flooding; Indonesia andparts of Asia experienced disastrous droughts.
During the 1997/1998 El Niño event, sea surface maps derived
from data from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite (a predecessorof Jason-2), indicated a Kelvin wave, with sea level some ten
centimetres higher than usual, moving along the equator from
Australia towards South America. The same pattern is currently
repeating in 2014, as a series of Kelvin waves, generated by
localised westerly bursts of wind in the western Pacific, havebeen heading eastwards since mid-January 2014.
Ocean and atmospheric scientists at NOAA and NASA are
carefully monitoring the Pacific trade winds. The tipping point
for declaring a significant El Niño will be an even longer lasting,larger collapse in Pacific trade winds, possibly signalling a shift
in weather all around the Earth. Excitement built after a third
weakening of the Pacific trade winds took place in mid-April, andon May 8, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction
forecasted a 65% chance of El Niño developing during thesummer of 2014. It will become much clearer over the next few
months whether these recent developments are the forerunnerof a major El Niño—or, any El Niño at all. If El Niño does return,
the American West and Southwest could, next winter, at lastgain relief from their long-lasting drought.

Figure 2 - Pacific Ocean Sea-surface map from May 3, 2014

Data courtesy NASA JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team.
Maps by Marit Jentoft-Nilsen and Robert Simmon.
Caption by Michael Carlowicz.

Figure 3 - Key to Sea-surface maps

www.geo-web.org.uk

25

GEO Quarterly No 42

The Group for Earth Observation

Hello Les,I am very happy to tell you that finally the magazine arrived today.
The printing quality is wonderful and every one here at home has
enjoyed the magazine. Once again thank you very much for thegood job on keeping this great magazine running and speciallyfor all the help you gave me and the nice opportunity to contributeto it. Please send my greetings and to all the assistants at the
Symposium next April.
Raydel Abreu, Cuba
[Raydel is not a GEO member, but was invited to contribute thearticle on SDR in GEOQ 40, and courtesy copy of the magazine
was therefore sent to him - Ed]
Hi Les,I have just read your plea for contributions for future GEO Quarterly
issues and I do sympathise with your predicament. I have long held
the view that the Quarterly is very interesting and a good read (andI really do appreciate all the effort you and your predecessors put
into its production). But, I do not think it is something that is ‘cast in
stone’ and must be produced at any cost for the group to survive,
every quarter.
If the members, me included, do not have anything to contributethat they think will be interesting to others, then so be it - I reallyenjoy receiving the many images from EUMETSAT every day
but cannot often see the need to write about them. If I do have aquestion about a particular weather effect then the Internet, withhelp from Google can usually provide the answer. If not, then GEO
Subscribers and other groups certainly will.
Until the change in EUMETCast delivery system, later this year,
to DVB S2 VCM comes into effect, we are all using very much thesame equipment and there really isn’t much to talk about! After thatchange I am sure that there will be a big change in the numbersthat continue to receive the data, and the GEO Subscribers groupwill be alive with chat and advice!
So I guess what I am saying is please do not beat yourself up
about the lack of articles - please hold and use what does come inand produce an occasional magazine for us, to your normal very
high standard. Do not worry if it takes 3, 6 or more months to makeit worth while! Like the rest of us, you do have a life outside the Geo
Quarterly and you should not feel burdened by it. Thanks, Les, forall your efforts.
Regards,
Nigel Heasman, Cyprus.

Symposium 2014
Venue was easily accessible, appropriate sized rooms, goodparking. Timings were good, sufficient time for plenty of coverage
without becoming super-saturated with information! Speakers all
extremely knowledgeable in their respective fields, and able todeliver their material clearly, using excellent slides, and dealt wellwith Q & A s at the end of each session.
Members’ knowledge and experience of the multifaceted art ofsatellite imaging and processing varies, from relative beginners,
to those with deep first hand working knowledge of some of theareas involved. Much of the content is quite technical, and concise
accurate information is essential to understand sufficient to copewith the pitfalls, trials and tribulations of what is, at present, farfrom being a plug and play system! None of us can be an expert
at everything, so the meetings provide a worthwhile experience isseeing other members’ experiences, problems, solutions, advice

26

June 2014

and so on. As a self-confessed dabbler in many hobbies, I
have found imaging fascinating, and try my best to maintain ahealthy interest, follow what is going on, and how it can be done,even if I do not have the technical know how, or the time, to do
everything I would like. GEO provides that source of information,and joining is to be highly recommended to would-be imagers!
I am still coming to terms with present MSG technology, so theseveral talks aimed at introducing the new S2 decoding we aregoing to have to use from next year were invaluable, and the
speakers were very clear to understand, in a quite technicalarea.
One area I feel there could be more information about is theinterface between meteorology, weather events, statistics andforecasting, and all the wonderful data that is available fromEUMETCast. Not just the pretty photos, but quantitative uses,
supporting old-fashioned ground station measurements! Perhaps
a speaker with advice on how to use the sea of data available,
alongside regular weather records, for instance. Maybe we allwant different things though!
Hope some of my ramblings prove useful....
Colin Prior,
Halesowen, West Midlands
Dear Francis,
Thank you for sending the EUMETSAT memory stick ofpresentations of our day in Leicester. I thought it was one ofthe very best, with plenty of really interesting subjects covered.
It was always going to a ‘not to miss’ event, with presentations
from EUMETSAT on the necessity for a change to transmission
parameters, and from the receiver manufacturers on theirproducts. I purchased an Ayecka receiver on the day, and it is
now working perfectly on my Linux reception station. It was reallysimple: no need to install drivers with Linux as they are available
in the kernel. Thanks to you and all the other friends who madethe day such a huge success.
Tim Holdsworth
Dear Francis
Thanks for sending the USB memory stick with the symposium
presentations. Also, thanks to all for organising the Symposium.
It was a great day, and we enjoyed meeting up with everyone
and listening to the speakers. Frustrating as it is to have time
for hobbies at the moment, I have hopes I’ll get our act together
for the new EUMETCast system. I even found what looks like asuitable dish in one of the sheds.
Ann and Phil Webber
Dear Francis,
I wish to record my thanks to you and the GEO team for all yourhard work which ensured a successful symposium at Leicester. I
greatly enjoyed all the presentations and appreciate all the workthat continues to ensure that GEO membership benefit from all
GEO’s team work.
Keith Lawton
Dear Francis,
Thank you for sending me the presentation files on the
EUMETSAT memory stick, I really appreciate your efforts onbehalf of the GEO membership.
Brian Davis

www.geo-web.org.uk

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 42

Continued from page 19

identified, and the time of maximum is nearthat of the detected interference in the NOAA-19
transmission on 137.100 MHz.

Start
09:45
16:20
17:45
18:52
19:52
21:29

Radio Events Observed 29 Mar 2014
A. 245 MHz Bursts
End
Peak Flux Time of
Duration
Peak
09:45
180
09:45
0 sec
16:20
270
16:20
0 sec
17:51
110 000
17:47
6 sec
18:52
450
18:52
0 sec
19:52
370
19:52
0 sec
21:29
100
21:29
0 sec
B. 245 MHz Storms
No noise storms observed
Table credit: NOAANOAA instead monitors the sun on VHF at
245 MHz. Different frequencies observed at thesun correspond to different levels on the solar
corona. That explains why a time difference for the
maxima can be expected on different wavelengths,
while the solar explosion evolves and the plasmaand particles become excited at different levels.
Postscript
Steven Ross from Weatherscience.net sent me animage from the same NOAA-19 pass (figure 6)
which clearly shows the same noise events on his
data.
http://www.weatherscience.net/

Conclusions
As we have seen, our closest star is not a passiveneighbour. Sometimes, without the possibility
to effectively forecast it, a major solar flare canproduce a short but important influence on thereception of satellite downlinks. Big events likethe one presented here (and bigger ones) haveoccurred, and it is quite certain they will happen
again in the future. Amateur observers canwitness a solar radio event with even very modest
equipment. However, this incredible coincidence
seems to pop a question: ‘Might similar events
have been inadvertently recorded in the past byother satellite imagery enthusiasts?’ I guess theanswer is definitely ‘yes’ ...

Figure 6
The same NOAA 19 pass acquired from the USA
Image: Weatherscience.net

GEO Symposium on YouTube
For the first time this year, videos of the presentations that took
place at GEO’s Symposium have been posted on YouTube foryou to enjoy. You can search for them in YouTube under “GEO
Symposium 2014”, or by entering any of the URLs listed below.
Note that the longer presentations have been broken into a numberof videos.
Presentations
Werkgroep Kunstmanen (Rob Alblas)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6NzUebo9Ho

The Basics of EUMETCast (David Taylor)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb-tBo7zKKM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZIjXdD2rh4

The EUMETSAT Help Desk (Kim Hui Gaune)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb-tBo7zKKM

Science from Meteorological Satellites: MSG/GERB to Metop/
AVHRR (Neil Humpage)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYEkopH6OP8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AphpeAt2z0U

References

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlOukwbac0M

1
2
3
4
5
6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aJmELHcVnk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot
http://spaceweather.com/glossary/flareclasses.html
http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/speclab/
https://pss.swpc.noaa.gov/LoginWebForm.aspx
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_1m.html
http://www.ips.gov.au/Category/World%20Data%20
Centre/Data%20Display%20and%20Download/
Spectrograph/Solar%20Radio%20Burst%20
Classifications.pdf
7 http://audacity.sourceforge.net
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem
9 http://www.radiosky.com/skypipeishere.html

The new EUMETCast S2 VCM dissemination standard (KlausPeter Renner)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv7EUUDP9xs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaOZl0AkDuc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8TzIGFda_c

The Ayecka SR1 receiver for S2 VCM reception (Aaron Fuchs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s686mQlHuiQ

The Novra DVB S2 Receiver (Gord Sawatzky)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMqsJf4Gzko

www.geo-web.org.uk

27

GEO Quarterly No 42

The Group for Earth Observation

June 2014

Paul Geissmann
For four weeks between April 17 andMay 17, the town of St Gallen in northeast
Switzerland was the scene for a remarkableexhibition staged by Paul Geissmann. Paulis an avid weather satellite enthusiast, andsupports an interesting website dealing withhis activities at
http://www.satellitenpaul.ch/main.html

Paul wrote an article about his passion ina local newspaper, and this led to mattersblossoming way beyond his expectations.
Paul takes up his story ...
The beginning of an exhibition is almost
always due to an accident. A newspaper
reporter comes along and sees all sorts ofsatellite disks and antennas emanating froma rustic Swiss barn. And so a small article
written in a local newsletter started a chain
reaction, a tipping point. Suddenly, I foundthat my somewhat remote satellite station
was on the radar of several newspapers,
private groups and organizations, allwanting to visit and learn more.
Because of this increased interest, I
approached the Raiffeisen Bank in Wilkeln,
St. Gallen, Switzerland regarding thepossibility of putting together an exhibitionin their building. Not only did the Bank
express interest in hosting such a venture,but enthusiastically also offered to cover thenecessary exhibition costs.

The display of satellite models and imagery in the Raiffeisen Bank.

As a result, the exhibition SatellitenPaul
was born, and for a full month, visitors
to the Raiffeisen Bank were treated toa display of scale models of weather
satellites, large high-resolution photographsof the world globe captured from weather
satellites, and various literature and takeaway materials.
The exhibition photography displayed atthe venue was in the form of satellite world
globe snapshots, were acquired by myself
during February 2014, using software
created by David Taylor. The photography
included ten different 80 x 80 cm high gloss,
high resolution global views.
The display also included three scalemodels of weather satellites obtained
from my good friend Men Schmidt, an
optical specialist for NASA and ESA. A
fourth weather satellite model on display,
approximately 1.2 meters tall and 80 cm indiameter, was borrowed from Meteosat-7,
Meteo Group, Switerland in Appenzell.
The EUMETSAT Help-Desk (Debbie, Pam,and Maria) was happy to participate as
well. They provided various giveaways andpromotional items, including world globe
pictures, pens, and USB sticks. Meteo

28

The wall display of high-resolution photographs

A table-top model of Metop-A

Switzerland contributed gifts for the visitors
too, in the form of educational pamphlets
about the weather.
The highlight of the SatellitenPaul exhibition
occurred on May 10, with shuttle bus
escorts to my satellite station every halfhour from 11 am till 3 pm for a close andpersonal tour. Visitors were also treated toa lunch consisting of bratwurst and drinks,
complements of Raiffeisen Bank.

www.geo-web.org.uk

The author, pictured beside the Meteosat-7 modelJune 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 42

29

GEO Quarterly No 42

EUMETCast On-Line
Registration Guide
If you require to register as a first-time user for
any of the free EUMETCast data streams suchas MSG, NOAA AVHRR, Metop etc., or needto renew an existing subscription, this must be
done on-line.
GEO has produced a step-by-step guide to theentire process at
http://www.geo-web.org.uk/eumreg.html
This guide also contains a direct link to theofficial EUMETCast on-line registration form,
which can otherwise prove somewhat tricky tolocate.

GEO Helplines
Douglas Deans

Dunblane, Perthshire, SCOTLAND.

All aspects of weather satellites from APT,
HRPT to Meteosat-9 DVB/EUMETCast
systems.
• telephone:(01786) 82 28 28• e-mail: dsdeans@btinternet.com
John Tellick
Surbiton, Surrey, ENGLAND.
Meteosat-9 advice: registering for the various
MSG services, hardware and software
installation and troubleshooting. John will
also field general queries about any aspect ofreceiving weather satellite transmissions.
• telephone: (0208) 390 3315
• e-mail: info@geo-web.org.uk
Geoff Morris GW3ATZ
Shotton, Flintshire, NE WALES.
Geoff has lots of experience with aerial,coax,connectors, mounting hardware etc. andhas also done a lot of work with the orbiting
satellites. Geoff has been a EUMETCast
Meteosat-9 user for some time and is familiar
with David Taylor’s MSG software. He
should be able to share his experiences with
newcomers to this branch of the hobby.
• Tel: (01244) 818252• e-mail: gw3atz@btopenworld.com
Mike Stevens
Portland, Dorset, England.
Assistance with reception of EUMETCast
to include Metop-A and Metop-B; also MSG
Data reception and set-up within the PC, andassistance with dish alignment and set-up.
• email: mikeg4cfz@gmail.com
Guy Martin G8NFU
Biggin Hill NW Kent, ENGLAND
Guy is prepared to advise anyone who wishing
to receive MSG/Metop using Windows 2000 or
XP. Can also help with networking and ADSL
router setup.
• gmartin@electroweb.co.uk
Hector Cintron
San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
Hector is prepared to field enquiries on HRPT,
APT, EMWIN and NOAAPORT• Phone: 787-774-8657• e-mail: n1tkk@hwic.net
Email contact can of course be made at any
time, but we would ask you to respect privacy
by restricting telephone contact to the period
7.00 - 9.00 pm in the evenings.

30

The Group for Earth Observation

Weather Satellite Reports
If there is a single Internet Forum that isrelevant to all weather satellite enthusiasts,
it must surely be Douglas Deans’ Weather
Satellite reports.
Here you will find every conceivable type of
information about weather satellites, whether
polar or geostationary, APT, HRPT, LRIT orwhatever.
Absolutely everything is covered, and theinformation is updated every week. Special
additional bulletins may be issued if an
important change takes place mid week.
You can read the bulletins from this URL
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/
weather-satellite-reports/
or, even better, elect to have the reports sent
to you by email every Monday.

Internet Discussion Groups

There are a numerous Internet-based
discussion groups available to weather satellite
enthusiasts. You can join any of these by
sending an e-mail to the appropriate address,
with a request to subscribe. Indeed, a blanke-mail containing the word ‘subscribe’ in its
Subject line is all that is required. Some of themore useful groups and their contact addresses
are listed below.
APT Decoder
This is a group where users of Patrik Tast’s
APTDecoder can share information andproblems.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/APTDecoder/
GEO-Subscribers
This is GEO’s own group, where members can
exchange information and post queries relating
to any aspect related to weather satellite
reception (hardware, software, antennas etc),
Earth observation satellites and any GEOrelated matter.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/GEO-Subscribers/
Satsignal
An end-user self help group for users ofDavid Taylor’s Satellite Software Tools(SatSignal, WXtrack, GeoSatSignal, HRPT
Reader, GroundMap, MSG Data Manager,
AVHRR?Manager and the ATOVS?Reader).
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/SatSignal/
MSG-1
A forum dedicated to Meteosat Second
Generation (MSG), where members share
information about the EUMETCast reception
hardware and software.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/MSG-1/
www.geo-web.org.uk

June 2014

Copy Deadline for
GEO Quarterly No 43 is
Sunday, August 3, 2014
The Editor is always delighted to receive
articles and images for inclusion in
GEO Quarterly. These can relate to any
aspect of Earth Imaging, especially• Technical articles concerning relevant
hardware and software• Construction projects• Weather satellite images• Reports on weather phenomena• Descriptions of readers’ satellite imaging
stations• Activities from overseas readers• Letters to the Editor• Problems and Queries for our experts toanswerContributions should of course be original
and, where possible, should be submitted
to the editor in electronic format (e-mailattachment, CD, DVD). But of course, wewould also accept handwritten or typed copy.
Please note, however, that major articles
which contain large numbers of satellite
images, photographs or other illustrations
should be submitted as early as possible,
so that they can be prepared and made up
into pages in time for publication.
Images and Diagrams
Images can be accepted in any of the major
bitmap formats: JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF etc.
Images in both monochrome and colour are
welcomed. Line drawings and diagrams are
preferred in WMF, EPS or postscript formats.
We can also scan original photographs,
negatives and slides.
Gridding, Overlays and Captions
Please note that readers’ satellite images
should be provided without added grid lines,
country outlines or captions unless these areconsidered essential for illustrative purposes
within an article.
If your article submission contains embedded
images and diagrams, please note that you
must also submit copies of the original
images in one of the formats describedabove: these are essential for page make-up
purposes.
Submission of Copy
Materials for publication should be sent to
the editor,
Les Hamilton
8 Deeside Place
Aberdeen AB15 7PW
ScotlandThe most efficient way to do this is by email
attachments to the following address
geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk
Particularly large attachments (8 MB andabove) can be transmitted via YouSendIt
www.yousendit.com_________________________
And finally . . .
if you do have material ready for the next
issue of GEO Quarterly, please submit it
as soon as it is ready—do not wait till thedeadline above: this will simply create an
editorial log-jam and delay publication.

June 2014

The Group for Earth Observation

www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 42

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The Group for Earth Observation

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June 2014