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The GEO Quarterly

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June 2010

Editorial: Peter Greenhe amount of data that is available to us just keeps growing. As you will seein this issue MODIS Data with all its channels is here with a new viewer
program from David Taylor, with a terrific example on the inside back cover.
nvisat is capturing more of our members interest with some stunning
images, Arne van Belle and Francis Bell share some of their first examples,with a promise of more to come, also David Taylor with an in-depth article on
how to receive these data.
ith volcanoes very much in the news David Painter who was alreadyworking on his two part article before our friend Eyjafjallajokull (which is
now a household name, even if we cant say it!) bought Europe to a standstill andgives us his in-depth look at these untamed natural eruptions. I see plans arebeing formulated to ensure the next generation of geostationary satellites have
improved censors and coverage for Europe to help volcanic ash tracking andmodelling.
es Hamilton looks at Antarctica's Mertz Glacier as Iceberg B-9B shatters, withstunning images for us to see.
ale Hardy shows us the how weird and wonderful the weather can be in New
South Wales when he awoke to a Martian Dawn.
n Q25 Francis Breame looked back at the early days of Dundee University, thisprompted a pioneer of amateur reception to get in touch. John Tuke takes us
through his trials, tribulation and success that so impressed NASA they invited
him to America.
here are many varied and interesting articles from our members for you toenjoy.Please let me have your contributions for the next Quarterly before 31st
July, without you this magazine is nothing. I would like to reflect all themembers interest, whether APT or geostationary, beginner or experienced, let meknow about how you got into the hobby. I prefer to use high quality images fromour members rather that from other sources, so any that interest you may well
be of interest to others, send them in.
am very grateful to Douglas Deans for his new series in Computer Corner,
explaining the data and channels available over EUMETCast and there uses to
us to study our weather and world.
hank you to all those that contributed, if you have not contributed before,
why not send something in for Q27, it will be gratefully received In themeantime I hope you enjoy Q26.

T
E

W
L
D
I
T
I
T

Contents
GEO Report
Transverse Cirrus Bands
Sea ice & cloud streets in the Sea of Okhotsk
In the beginning
GEO Outreach
Antarctic Collision Mertz Glacier
New South Wales, Martian Dawn
Cover & full page images
MODIS L1 Viewer, new program for new data
The Envisat Data Dissemination System

Francis Bell
Robert Moore
Robert Moore
John Tuke
Francis BellLes Hamilton
Dale Hardy
David Taylor
David Taylor

2
4
5
6
8
10
13
15
16
18

GEO Shop
NOAA Satellite Predictions for the UK and Western Europe
Helplines and Internet Discussion Group
Copy Deadline for the next issue of GEO Quarterly
GEO Membership Renewal Form

i
ii
iii
iii
iv

Oil Spill Gulf of Mexico
DIY Atom Nvidia Ion System
Quarterly Question
Hunting for Volcanic & Man Made Gases
ATOVS Data

Arne van Belle/Pete Green
Harry H Ardens
Francis BellDavid PainterRobert Moore

23
24
26
27
34

WXtrack ISS Mode
Neyriz Lakes Iran
50 Year of Weather Sats, TIROS Celebration
Feedback
Computer CornerDavid Taylor
John Tellick
John Tellick

35
36
38
41
42

Douglas DeansGEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

Francis BellI have recently been in touch with ourmembership secretary and he informs
me that there have been a number of
new members joining GEO for the firsttime. This is very encouraging and I
would like to offer a warm welcome to all
new members. Along with this welcome
is a request
and an invitation tocontribute to the group with materials
in the form of text, images, personal
experiences
for our Quarterly
publication, whether you’re a novice oran experienced user your contributions
will be welcome. Materials should besent to the editor, myself or anyone in
the management team. There are alsoInternetdiscussion
groupsandcontributions here are also be
welcomed.
Our
membershipnumbersarereasonably constant at just over 500.
This means that new members balance
those who do not, for what ever reason,chose to renew. When a membershiprenewal is due you will receive a noticewith your last quarterly. Please act on
this promptly as we do not have in placea routine system for reminding lapsed
members that they have not renewed.
The bottom line here is please renew
promptly or we will lose track of you.
Membership numbers are closely
related to our finances. Of course our
two biggest items of expense are the costof printing and distributing ourQuarterly. These costs just aboutbalance membership subscriptions
hence
our
need
to
maintainmembership numbers. It is reassuring
to know that the shop as well as
providing an outstanding service tomembers and non member with accessto hardware that would be very difficult
or impossible to source elsewhere, italso makes a modest profit for the groupproviding a financial buffer should it beneeded for any reason.
Envi-Ham Project
GEO Quarterly 25 contained guidelines
about how to become involved in theEnvi-Ham project. As far as I know theopportunity to engage in this project isstill available. However, there is one
important correction to the contact
point for ESA in Frascati. The email
contact should be
tta@esa.int
not
Stefano Badessi’s personal email
address. Just to repeat Envi-Ham
correspondence should go to tta@esa.int

2

My involvement with the Envi-Ham
project continues to excite me. I am
receiving a steady stream of high quality
images from ESA’s Envisat earth
observation satellite: examples of theseimages are published elsewhere in thisQuarterly, see pages 21,22,32 and 37. I
still consider myself a beginner with thisproject both for signal reception andimage processing. With help from Arne
van Belle I am learning to combine someof the different spectral channels
contained within the raw image data
and assign different colours andbrightness to these channels to produce
natural looking colour images. You willsee from my examples I’m still on alearning curve. In the short term I haveto admit to the satisfaction of displaying
attractive images with identifiable
coastal outlines rather than pursuing a
specific scientific objective: perhaps thiswill come in time when I am moreexperienced. An exception here may be
the eruption of Iceland’s Mount
Eyjafjallajokull with its disruptive ash
plume. I am currently researching
images showing this eruption. I havealready seen spectacular film of theeruptionrecordedby‘National
Geographic’.
The eruption of the Iceland volcano was
not an insignificant experience for me as
I was in Japan with my wife when theeruption of Mount Eyjafjallajokull withits dense ash plume became newsworthy on TV. Our hotels in Japan all
had TV in the rooms allowing us tofollow the story, sometimes on CNN or
BBC but more often on a Japanesechannel; well we could look at the
pictures and recognise the closure of
airports in London and Germany even in
Japanese! For many days the volcano
affected flights out of Japan and I know
many British travellers were stranded
for several days. For us the news wasgood as scheduled BA flights back to
London resumed one day before we were
due to return home but I am very
sympathetic for those who were delayed.
Another point about Japan may be
worth a note. Often on my travels I takemy mobile APT system with me and therecent Japanese expedition was no
exception, however, we were so busy
with our travel programme that I did nothave a single opportunity to set up my
APT station and receive satellite imagesof Japan. There is consolation here

www.geo-web.org.uk

because I took terrestrial based
photographs instead - all 380 of them!
Freebie publications.
In Quarterly 23 I gave details of how toreceive a number of free space / earth
observation publications. Just as I write
this report I have received my latest
copy of ‘Planet Earth’ This is publishedby the Natural Environment ResearchCouncil. This publication has taken overfrom BNSC’s ‘Space News’ and is more
earth rather than space orientated but
I think it is an excellent publication. A
reminder that you can order it on-line atwww.nerc.ac.uk

The above reference to BNSC should
prompt members attention to the factthat a new UK Space Agency has been
formed. The 1st April 2010 was the‘launch’ date for this new agency. The
UKSA will take over responsibility for
UK space policies which were previously
in partnerships between Government
Departments, Research Councils and
BNSC. I’m sure GEO will follow theactivities, influence and development of
the UKSA. For a little further comment
about UKSA see my ‘Outreach’ report of
the UK National Space Conference on
Page 8
Contact with membership
I would like to establish a data base withemail addresses of members. I knowthat all members are not on the Internet
but I suspect the majority of members
do use the Internet and email. I knowthat in some cases members email
addresses are lodged with ourmembership secretary but in somecases these may be out of date. In orderto establish an up-to-date record it
would be useful to have a fresh direct
email contact point with members. I
envisage using the system only on an
occasional basis for important notices or
news. There would also be the facility tosend an occasional newsletter relating
to GEO’s activities. The system would
not be used for routine contacts or as a
substitute for our printed Quarterly.
I would like all members who are willingto send me an email using theirpreferred address. Just send me a one
line message: ‘Please include me on
your email data base.’ or somethingsimilar. Please also give your preferredfull name. I will send a brief
acknowledgement. I will keep the dataJune 2010

Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 26

base on dedicated secure computer andthe address list will be used only at mydiscretion. I think this will be a useful
resource for the future. My address isfrancis@geo-web.org.uk

invited and the detailed programmed isabout to be published. GEO hope to bea major participant in this conference.
Accommodation will be available, forthe latest news http://www.rmets.org/

5.9, 5.7 Buenos Aries at 3.4, 5.4 andRosairio at 0.5, 7.4. Rosairio is about
160 miles NW of Buenos Aires
although I had to use a scaled map to
determine this distance.

Additional Help

1st - 2nd October The National
Hamfest 2010 is to be held near Newark
Notts. Last year this two day event waswell attended and GEO plan to have astand again this year running live
satellite images. This event is well worth
visiting. For further details Google
Lincoln Short Wave Club or visit:

Disappointingly only two members
responded but both correctly. My
thanks to Peter Merlin, UK and Mike
Bragg , Timaru NZ for their time andinterest in this question.

I was very pleased to receive an email
from Rob Denton responding to myrequest for somebody to take over
responsibility for either International
Liaison or the more routine task ofmailing out the Quarterly. You willrecall our new editor previously looked
after International liaison for us andPeter Wakelin the distribution of theQuarterly. Rob’s offer of help is muchappreciated and details will be agreed indue course.
A Satellite Status Report
In the past our Quarterly has carrieddetails of orbits, operational status anddownlink frequencies of a number ofweather satellites. Contributions weregenerated by a number of people. I
think it will be constructive for the
future to establish a regular one page
report covering weather satellites, andperhaps others, in which our members
are likely to be interested. I notice thisis covered well in ‘De Kunstmaan’ andin outline by EUMETSAT’s ‘Image’. It
would be great if we could establish
something similar.
The Request
Is there a member who would be willing
to look after this Status Report page on
a quarterly basis? Once a format or
page layout was established the task ofkeeping it up to date should not be toomuch of a burden. The quarterly task
would be to document as appropriatechanges in available frequencies
formats or services and reporting any
new satellite or service.
Do we have a member who is willing toundertake this role? I can provide an
outline of what I have in mind but thiswould not be prescriptive with format
and presentation being left to whoever
undertakes this role. Please contact me
francis@geo-web.org.uk if you arewilling to help.
Future events
31st July - 1st August AMSAT-UK isholding its annual colloquium. The
venue is the Holiday Inn, Guildford.
GEO hopes to be represented on bothdays with displays and a presentation
relating to the Envi-Ham project. For
further
information
visit
www.uk.amsat.org

4th-5thSeptember
The
Royal
Meteorological Society is planning a
conference in Reading. This could be an
important event and GEO would like toparticipate but details are uncertain
and needed to be checked. A Keynote
speaker from EUMETSAT has beenwww.nationalhamfest.org.uk

11th September and 13th November
2010 These are the dates for De
Werkgroep Kunstmanen meetings in
Utrecht, Netherlands. I understand that
there will be a number of GEO members
attending their 11th September meeting
For further details visit their web sitewww.kunstmanen.nl

I expect there will be RSGB contact
points as well.
I wish to express my disappointmentthat plans for our own symposium havebeen compromised this year. I did makea provisional booking at the NSC
Leicester but uncertainty by others
prevented me from confirming theevent. I will not allow this to happen
again.
Conclusion.
It would not be appropriate for me tofinish my report without a ‘thank you’ toour new editor who produced GEO 25
for us. When talking to GEO members
or members of the public who see ourpublication for the first time all arecomplimentary about its quality ofpresentation and content. It must havebeen a daunting task for Pete Green toundertake the role of editor andmaintain the standard which we haveenjoyed since GEO’s formation in early
2004. This has been achieved so on
behalf of our group an expression of
thanks to our editor.
The Quarterly Question 25
Regular readers will remember the last
Quarterly Question related to an
Envisat image of the River Plate plus
parts of Uruguay and Argentina. The
question was prompted by my recent
visit to the River Plate and the greetings
message received from Carlos Cotlier at
the Remote Sensing Centre, Rosario
University, Argentina compounded by
my new interest in receiving Envisat
images. The question was: ‘Could thetown of Rosario be seen on the satellite
image?’ The image was printed on page
13 of GEO 25. Understandably theanswer was yes. Using the standard
graphical x, y coordinate system withthe origin at bottom left, with a scale ofzero to ten on each axis the following
cities could be located:- Montevideo at

Quarterly Question 26
This new Quarterly Question has
again been generated by an Envisat
image which this time I received on
my own newly established Envi-Ham
system. On this particular image I was
astonished to see an island in the
middle of the Mozambique Channel. I
just didn’t know that such an island
existed. For the most part the
Mozambique Channel is effectively
ocean with a sea depth of about 3,000
m. However, I have now discoveredthat there are a small number ofislands originally volcanic in origin,
now subsided and contracted but
leaving coral reefs at their surface.
This is exactly the history of the island
which had attracted my attention.
Here comes the double interest. In
January of next year my travel plans
will for a few days take me into theMozambique Channel. I certainly
don’t want to be shipwrecked on theisland I had seen - as others have inthe past! I have been on a learning
curve with respect to this island andhave established some facts andfigures.
The island was first discovered by thePortuguese in the 16th century. The
island rises steeply from the sea bed
about 3,000 m below. The island is aroughly circular atoll about 10 km indiameter with a central lagoon of
about 80 km sq and it is located in thesouthern Mozambique Channel. The
reef rim averages about 100 m acrossand totally encloses the central lagoon
which is about 15 m in depth. The
atoll consists of 10 barren rocky islets
with no vegetation and a maximum
height of 3 m above sea level. At hightide the whole island is covered by thesea. The region is subject to cyclones
and has long been a maritime hazard.
The question is straightforward. Whatis the name of this island. Either its
original name or the modern namewill be judged correct. The satellite
image showing this island is on page32.
A randomly chosen winner will receive
an attractive marine related gift which
I will buy in the Comoros Islands inJanuary 2011.Answers to me by emailby the copy deadline for GEO
Quarterly 27.Francis@geo-web.org.uk

3

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

Robert Moore

On the 19th February 2010 while browsing Metop-A images I
noticed a line of cloud across India approximately southwest/north-east from around Surat on the coast of Gujarat.
This shows up very clearly in Channel 4 [above]. A quick lookat my atlas reinforced my view that this was orographic cloudcreated by warm air from the north being forced up over arange of hills and mountains. Others pointed out that as thisfeature extended over the sea this was unlikely to be the case.
David Smart on the TORRO (Tornado and Storm Research
Organisation) list suggested that these were transverse cirrus
bands and drew my attention to an article in January 2010’s
edition of Weather (the journal of the Royal MeteorologicalSociety) ‘Transverse cirrus bands in weather systems: a grandtour of enduring enigma’ [1].

seen some of the discussions I no longer had any upper air
charts or the adjacent satellite images to continue myenquiry. It is most unlikely that I would have got muchfurther anyhow, but it’s nice to know that something that
confused me also puzzles top scientists, albeit at a much
more advanced level.

As the title suggests transverse cirrus bands are an enigma
and the article reviews the current state of knowledge about
them. The bands are, apparently, quite a common feature,often noted on the edges of tropical storms but also in midlatitudes. They are poorly understood, but when notassociated with tropical storms (as in the case illustratedhere) the bands are aligned roughly perpendicular to the
300mbar wind flow. This means they are found along the edgeof the jet stream. The authors note that ‘The connection
between transverse bands (especially the widest and thickest
bands) and CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) is now a longstanding
aviation forecasting rule-of-thumb.’ They go on to suggestthat understanding transverse banding is therefore of
considerable interest to aviation forecasting.

Meteosat Third Generation

So the chances are that this image is in part a picture of amystery (or is it a mystery of a picture?). By the time I had

4

1 John A. Knox, A. Scott Bachmeier, W. Michael Carter, Jonathan E. Tarantino,
Laura C. Paulik, Emily N. Wilson, Gregory S. Bechdol, Mary J. Mays
'Transverse cirrus bands in weather systems: a grand tour of an enduring
enigma' Weather Volume 65 Issue 2 , Pages 35 - 41 (February 2010)

A consortium led by Thales Alenia Space of France will enter
into negotiations for a 1.3bn-euro (£1.2bn) contract to build
Europe's next weather satellites.
The TAS group was selected after a competitive process run
by the European Space Agency (Esa).
The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system will comprise
six satellites, with the first spacecraft likely to be ready forlaunch in 2016.MTG is expected to bring a step change inweather forecasting capability.
The programme should guarantee European access to spaceacquired meteorological data until at least the late 2030s.

www.geo-web.org.uk

June 2010

Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 26

Robert Moore

copyright EUMETSAT and received 21 February 2010

The image from METOP-A on February 21st shows ice
breaking up in the Sea of Okhotsk. This area is especiallyinteresting, being one of considerable tectonic and volcanic
activity – the latter being a notable feature of the Kamchatka
Peninsula. The sea is a major region for marine wildlife
including a number of endangered species and as such isdeemed to be of global importance. The region also has
substantial oil reserves. During the Cold War the Sea of
Okhotsk, fully surrounded by Soviet territory, was animportant location for military operations by the USSR andfor US espionage.
The sea itself has a very large tidal range and is noted for its
strong currents. The freezing of the sea is affected by themixing of fresh water, from numerous rivers but mainly fromthe mighty Amur which flows into the sea behind Sakhalin
Island. The inflow of fresh water raises the freezing point of
the water by lowering its salinity.
The disintegrating ice sheet can be seen very clearly in thisimage and the section of the sea ice map produced using
David Taylor’s SeaIceViewer enables us to register the ice
concentration against the visual imagery. The beautiful cloudstreets to the south east of the ice are formed by cold air
flowing off the ice and encountering warmer sea. UK
observers are familiar with these formations off the south
western tip of Greenland.

copyright EUMETSAT and received 21 February 2010 produced using David Taylor’s
SeaIceViewer

Perhaps the other point to note from this image is theextremely harsh, bleak nature of the mainland in the winter.

www.geo-web.org.uk

5

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

John B Tuke

Several years ago, John Tuke compiled an article describing his
early days producing APT satellite images. Following our appeal for
more reminiscences at the end of Francis Breame’s article lastissue, John wrote in with some fascination information (see‘Letters’ page). It also provided the ideal opportunity to reprint
John’s article for the benefit of new readers.
I suppose it really all started in 1940. If you suddenly find yourself
working in North Uist in the Scottish Hebrides, you quickly come tothe conclusion that the weather is such a dominant factor that, if
you can't fight it, you might as well join it and get to understand it.
After the war, there was always the problem of how to obtainweather information: the only way for the first ten or fifteen years
was to copy hundreds of coded five-figure groups in Morse, anddraw your own charts. To see what was happening out in the
Atlantic took the best part of a couple of hours.
Things were improved with the coming of radio-teleprintertransmissions and in the mid-fifties radio fax came along. A drumtype fax machine using Meccano was built and, after a good dealof modification, was very successful. The main problem wasgetting the synchronous motor driving the drum to run at thecorrect speed—finally solved by making a tuning-fork oscillator
kept in a home-made oven. The image was processed on‘Teledeltos’ paper. A sharp pointed stylus rested on the paper and,
when a current flowed, it burned off the top pale-grey layer to show
black underneath. It smelled like fireworks, and gave off smoke. In
the sixties came the happy day when I first heard about weather
satellites; but how to receive them—that was the question.
Information from official sources was largely absent. I wrote to one
well-known wireless magazine and was told that if I proceeded withtrying to pick up the satellite transmissions I was likely to findmyself in 'The Tower' for contravening the official secrets act!
However, bits of information started to trickle through and it was
obvious that a receiver in the 137 MHz band was needed, plus afairly large aerial and a fax-type receiver. A receiver using valves
was built up, with one RF stage, a mixer, a string of IFs and some
simple audio filtering. The aerial was an eight-turn helix (good job I
had plenty of space at that time) steered by hand with ropes by
watching the signal strength meter and waving it about for best
results, as I had no orbital information. With a bit of modification to

Figure 2 -One of the ‘ESSA’ images that John took with him to the US
on his 1968 visit. You can clearly see the horizontal lines acrossthe image. These were produced by the stylus as it burned into
the Teledeltos electro-sensitive paper. John kindly provided thisimage as a print from one of his archived photographic negatives.

the fax receiver, so that it would run at 240 rpm instead of 120(achieved by grinding the tuning-fork down a bit), and modifying
the output so that the stylus would produce shades of grey insteadof simple black and white, results were obtained. Unfortunately,
there was only one satellite and it was only receivable once or at
the most twice every twenty-four hours so improvements andmodifications were tedious to say the least. But eventually, quite
good results were obtained and, out of curiosity, I send some toNASA and asked them what they thought about them. Much to mysurprise they were quite impressed, and as a result my wife and I
were given a fortnight’s all-expenses paid ‘Cooks Tour’ round theSpace Programme in general and the GEC weather satellites inparticular, from New York to Los Angeles.

Figure 1 - An Image acquired from the geostationary ATS3 satellite

6

The result of this tour and the publicity it generated resulted inseveral people getting in touch with me on my return to UK andalso the opportunity to acquire a genuine fax receiver, the big
Muirhead photographic chart recorder commonly known as the‘Fish Fryer’ because of its shape. This produced its picture on asheet of photographic paper wrapped around a drum, the signal

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GEO Quarterly No 26

altering the light intensity by moving a galvanometer mirror
which reflected more or less light from a very bright bulb. It
was necessary to do quite a bit of signal conditioning togive good results and I would monitor the signal on an
oscilloscope to achieve really good pictures. There was ofcourse no modifying the picture after it was received.
Some of the results were impressive and I had a visit from
Dundee University as they were interested in starting up.
In fact I gave them my original VHF receiver so that they
could get going. When I moved from the west of Scotland,
they also had my helix, which I understand was mounted
on the university roof, but not steered by ropes!
One early problem gave a bitof trouble. The first night-timetransmissions were at somevery slow and very odd line
frequency. I cannot remember
what it was but something like
48 rpm, but with several
decimal places following! This
necessitated making a newtuning-fork and replacing the
motor drive transformers withbigger ones so that they would
operate successfully at a low
frequency.
ATS3

Eventually all the worst of thebugs were ironed out and, by
the early seventies, everything was going fine on a regularbasis. Interest was growing everywhere in the reception of
the satellites and for a while it was even possible toreceive a geostationary image on the 137 MHz band. Thiswas from a satellite called ATS3 and one of its images isreproduced here. They are not very good, as the signal
was extremely weak (figure 1).
Credit: NASA

The original satellites produced their pictures by taking a‘snapshot’ of the scene below, and then scanning andtransmitting it. The Nimbus series was the first to use thecontinuous transmission which we have today. The first
pictures like this were not linearised at the edges, and you‘saw’ from horizon to horizon. This was really quite
remarkable and a good picture, if looked at it sideways on,gave quite an impression of the view you might get if you
were up there!
Figure 2 was obtained during the ‘sixties from one of theearly ESSA satellites. These spacecraft were designed andconfigured exactly the same as Nimbus-1. The satellite
had a mass of 138 kg, and took the form of an 18-sided
polygon, 105 x 55 cm. The craft was made from aluminumalloy and stainless steel covered with 9100 solar cells
which served to charge the 63 nickel-cadmium batteries.

The United Kingdom Space Conference was held from 24-28
March in Godalming Surrey. This premier event always
attracts a stellar cast of speakers and this year was no
exception. The launch of the UK Space Agency in same week
added to the excitement. Many of the presentations areavailable for view from the Upstream server.
AMSAT-UK attended to explain their exciting plans for the
FUNcube satellite. As well as the Amateur Radio SSB/CWtransponder FUNcube will provide an in-orbit tool forscience education outreach and hands-on training in space
and all the STEM subjects (Science Technology Engineering& Mathematics). The telemetry system is designed for easy
reception by school pupils using extremely simple hand held
VHF receive equipment connected to a PC soundcard or
USB port.
The satellite contains a materials science experiment andpupils will be able to receive the results direct from spaceand compare them with similar reference experiments in theclassroom.
The FUNcube stand at the conference included a mock-up of
the new satellite and a demonstration of the telemetry.
FUNcube is expected to be launched in early 2011.
Michael Castle, G1ZVN, gave a short introduction on
FUNcube during one of the education sessions and FUNcube
was also featured in a presentation on the UK National
Cubesat project.
During the 5 days over 1000 people attended the event andthe concept behind FUNcube was well received.
There will be more demonstrations of FUNcube at the
AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium to be held in
Guildford from 31 July to 1 August.
AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News,
which is full of Amateur Satellite information. Join online athttps://secure.amsat.org.uk/subs_form/
FUNcube: http://www.FUNcube.org.uk/
AMSAT-UK: http://www.uk.amsat.org/
Upstream Server: http://www.upstream.tv/channel/uksc-2010

Although I had a lot of fun making all the equipment in theearly days, my main interest is really in the weather itself,
and the coming of modern gear and the use of computersmeans that I can concentrate on the results rather than thetechnical side. Together with the conventional surface
weather charts the satellite images help to build up an
overall picture of the meteorological situation.
Finally I must remember my good friend Drewie McGuffie(GM3CEA), unfortunately no longer with us, who was
happy to spend long hours both by day and night inassisting in all the experiments of the early days. I guess
we kept each other going when everything went wrong, as
it often did! He also acquired a ‘Fish Fryer’ and together
we produced images which are as good as any you can
get today.

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June 2010

Francis Bell

Alton Brownies:- Lauren, Chloe, Megan and Ella with their posters courtesy EUMETSAT

8

GEO satellite dish outside the Charterhouse conference hall

Lunch in front of the GEO stand in the main exhibition hall

Slightly desertedGEO and ESA stands while delegates were attending a lecture

Question and answer session with Lembit Öpik MP via ‘Skype’

GEO stand the centre monitor showing recent Envisat images on the left live
EUMETCast imaging

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June 2010

GEO Outreach 2010
The early part of 2010 saw GEO busy
with two events involving schoolchildren, the general public and thespace industry.
Thinking Day on the Air
The Three Counties Amateur RadioClub (TCARC) of which I am amember has a long association with
the Alton Brownies, so to celebrate
this year's special event for them aradio station was established at the
Brownie HQ in Alton. The station ran
HF and VHF in different modes plus
interfacing with the Internet. I took
my weather satellite receiving station
which I ran for two and a half days.
Some people will know that 2010 is
special for the Guide and Brownie
movements. It is the centenary
birthday of Lord Baden Powellfounder of the Scout movement andthen the Guides.
To commemorate this special year,
special events are being held aroundthe world. One dimension to these
events includes amateur radio
contacts using special event callsigns. The call sign being used in the
UK is GG100 ***. The G prefix isallocated by international agreement
to the UK, the second G is for guides,
the 100 representing the anniversary
year. The final suffix is allocated toindividual groups: so the suffix weused GIA represented Guides in
Alton generating the full call-sign
GG100GIA.
I'm always impressed by the various
activities undertaken by the
Brownies at their residential events
which I attribute as a function of thecommitment and enthusiasm of theirorganisers.
During the two and a half days I was
there all the Brownies, under
supervision used the radio
equipment achieving world wide
contacts with other groups.
They all visited the weather station atleast once, (see picture opposite)withsome coming back several times
learning how to zoom and scan thereceived images. I ran a live
EUMETCast and displayed recorded
Envisat images on a laptop. I noted
their reaction between the two systems,
like me they wanted to know "what's
the weather like now!" Not yesterday, ora pretty picture of Miami USA. Some
resourceful Brownies also used theweather satellite images to tell theirworld-wide contacts in real time what
the weather was like in their own
countries.
Thanks must go to EUMETSAT for theirsupport with literature, posters andGroup for Earth Observation

other materials they made available
for this event.

UK National Space ConferenceThis was the fifth year that GEO
has been invited to exhibit at the
UK Space Conference incorporating
the British Rocketry Oral History
Programme (BROHP) held annually
in Godalming Surrey.
Each year GEO has provided live
satellite weather images for theinterest of those visiting the eventand this year was no exception.
My perception of the conference isthat it has grown in statue over theyears to the point where it now
attracts heads of government
departments together with their civil
servants, research organisations,those representing the UK spaceindustry and special interest
groups.
This year the conference was
generally described as the ‘UK
National Space Conference’ but stillin touch with its antecedent
BROHP. The programme lasted fivedays from March 24th to March
28th 2010
Days one and two had an
educational bias with school groups
visiting the exhibition areas andattending the many and varied
workshops which were on offer.
Days three and four were theprinciple conference days withdelegates attending learned lecturesand presentations on space related
topics.
Day five was a public day withvisitors coming as individuals,
family groups and others either
personally interested in space topics
or seeking to promote
understanding for others such as
amateur radio groups, planetariums
and receiving equipment forschools.
During the public day there were aseries of short remote presentations
to a seated audience using a ‘Skype’
link. These included a question andanswer session from Wales withLembit Öpik MP (Lib-Dem) who hasa special interest in space (picture
bottom left opposite).There werealso sessions with NASA scientists
from the USA.
An important theme running
through all five days of theconference was the anticipatedchanges to the public presentationof space within the UK. The British
National Space Centre( BNSC)www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 26

is / was a government department
staffed by civil servants andrepresents the UK’s public
involvement in space. However
during the conference it wasannounced that on 1st April 2010
there was to be a totally new UK
Space Agency ( UKSA ). According
to the minister for space the newagency will take over responsibility
for government policy on key
budgets for space in close
partnership with industry andresearch institutions.
For more information about the
new UKSA visit their web site:
http://www.ukspaceagency.bis.gov.uk

This is such a new institution thatthe background to its formation,
structure and policies cannot becovered in this short text but it will
be interesting to follow
developments and policies as they
unfold over to coming years.
I thought GEO’s contribution to thefive day conference wasoutstanding. Resourcefully we ran
live EUMETCast images into twosystems on our stand. Thisrequired positioning the dish androuting cabling through an old
building into their central
exhibition hall (picture top right
opposite). Additionally we ran thevery latest Envi-Ham images onto afree-standing monitor. The standwas attractive and interesting to awide spectrum of visitors. Here is aquote from our visitors book:Ian Jones Orbital Research Ltd‘Excellent exhibition. Really inspiringand I will be in touch regarding
establishing a system at my local
school.’ Thank you Ian.
Our thanks must also go to
EUMETSAT for providing posters
and other literature for our stand.
Some of this literature I passed on
to the ‘Space Bus’ which tours
schools and other venues
promoting an interest in space
topics to schools and the generalpublic.
Arrangements for a similar
conference next year are still to be
formulated but doubtless the new
UKSA will be well established bythen and may promote a similar
conference in 2011.
My thanks to John Tellick who wasat the conference with me for threedays establishing the electronicequipment we had on the standand informing visitors of GEO’s
activities.

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June 2010

Les Hamilton
Antarctica’s Mertz Glacier was discovered during
Douglas Mawson’s 1911-14 expedition and wasnamed after party member Xavier Mertz who diedreturning from an expedition to survey King George V
Land. The glacier, approximately 30 km wide and
70 km in length, originates in a 60 km long fjord thenflows off East Antarctica along the George V Coastand into the Southern Ocean.
After crossing the coastline, the glacier originallycontinued to push out over the open ocean (at a rateof a kilometre per year) in the form of a 40 km wide
tongue of ice with an overall length of approximately
100 km. The Envisat ASAR (radar) image on thefacing page shows the entire Mertz Glacier Tongue,
its surface scarred by crevasses and showing a
number of major deep fractures. Fractures of thisnature have been observed for many years andregularly result in the calving of new icebergs from thetongue. Such an event occurred on January 10, 2010
and the new iceberg created was pictured by the
Advanced Land Imager aboard NASA’s EO-1 satellite(figure 1).

Figure 1 -Figure 2 -This annotated image shows the Mertz Glacier tongue andiceberg B-09B on February 7, 2010, shortly before the collision.

Figure 3 -This is the scene on February 20. The collision has fractured
the tongue to create a new iceberg almost as large as B-09B itself.

Figure 4 -February 26, and the new iceberg has started to drift northward.

An 80 km2 iceberg spawned by the Mertz
Glacier Tongue, imaged by NASA’s EO-1
satellite on January 10, 2010
Image:NASA

Similar to the glacier that spawned it, this iceberg,
sports a rippled surface, accentuated by the sun’s
relatively low elevation at the time of acquisition.
Roughly 8.5 kilometers in width, the iceberg issurrounded by smaller chunks of ice which may havebroken from the Mertz Glacier Tongue during thesame fracturing episode.
The B-9B iceberg is part of the 5390 km2 B-9 iceberg
which calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in 1987. Like
the majority of Antarctic icebergs, B-9 becametrapped in the strong currents that surround thecontinent (some icebergs have been known tocircumnavigate the Southern Ocean twice before

10

Figures 2, 3 and 4
MODIS imagery from NASA’s Aqua satellite
Credit: MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA/GSFC

Opposite Page
The Mertz Glacier tongue, along with Icebergs B-09B (upper right), C-14A and C-15, imaged
by Envisat’s ASAR instrument on December 11, 2007.
Credit: ESA

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GEO Quarterly No 26

escaping to warmer waters and finallymelting). After slowly drifting out of theRoss Sea, B-9 broke into three smaller
fragments off Cape Adare in 1989. The
B-9B fragment continued drifting westwards
until 1992, when it finally ran aground lessthan 100 km to the east of the Mertz
Glacier Tongue—and it remained there until
January 2010.
Collision
It was at some time during January thisyear that B-9B finally resumed its travels,and it was on February 12 or 13 that the‘berg finally made contact with the Mertz
Glacier Tongue.
Two deep fissures cutting through thesouthern part of the Mertz Glacier Tongue
had been developing since the 1990s.
Progressive rifting was observed from theeastern margin of the glacier until 2002, at
which time a new rift started to develop
from its western edge (figure 2). Recently,
these two rifts had almost joined, leaving
the northern portion of the glacier tongue
barely attached—like a ‘loose tooth’. The
final separation came when B-9B collided
with the eastern flank of the Mertz GlacierTongue, the impact creating a new iceberg
nearly as large as B-9B itself. Clouds hid
the actual impact but, on the afternoon of
February 13, they thinned just sufficiently toreveal that more than two thirds of the ice
tongue had indeed broken adrift.
The Mertz Glacier Tongue did not simply
separate along the line of these preexisting rifts, however. Although theseparation did follow the line of the western
rift for much of its length, shearing finally
took place across the section between it
and the eastern rift to produce a clean
line—which allowed the southern end of
the new iceberg to move freely past theremainder of the tongue.
The next cloud-free view of the region
showing the two separate icebergs was notacquired until February 20 (figure 3). A
huge chunk of the Mertz Glacier Tongue
had clearly broken away from the glacier,leaving behind a residual tongue of only
20-25 km. Over the course of the following
week the new iceberg pivoted away fromthe glacier like a door hinged at the point
where B-9B collided with it (figure 4).
Iceberg Designations
The new iceberg formed from the Mertz
Glacier Tongue, now designated C-28,
measured 78 x 39 kilometers and had amass estimated to be in the region of 850
billion tonnes. This represented someseventy years of glacial advance!
The US National Ice Center, located in
Maryland, names all icebergs located within
a set distance from the South Pole that areat least 10 nautical miles (19 km) long.
These names are assigned according towhere and when the iceberg first broke offfrom a glacier or ice shelf. The letter
represents one of four longitudinal

12Group for Earth Observation

quadrants of Antarctica ranging from ‘A’through ‘D’, quadrant ‘A’ facing thesouthern tip of South America while
quadrant ‘C’ faces Australia. Iceberg names
are related to the quadrant where they
were originally sighted. The quadrants,
listed counter-clockwise, areA 0-90W (Bellingshausen/Weddell Sea)
B 90W-180 (Amundsen/Eastern Ross Sea)
C 180-90E (Western Ross Sea/Wilkes Land)
D 90E-0 (Amery/Eastern Weddell Sea)

A sequential number is then assigned tothe iceberg, corresponding to the numberof named icebergs that have emerged fromthat particular quadrant since 1976. Iceberg
C-28 was given its name because it was
the 28th iceberg to form in the ‘C’ quadrant.
Polynyas
The Mertz Glacier Tongue had previously
contributed to maintaining an ice-free areaof ocean, known as a polynya; this is arelatively large region of open water thattends to persist throughout the year within
the polar sea ice. Due to the physicalprocesses responsible for their formation,
many polynyas recur in the same region
every year. Polynyas may range in size
from a few square kilometres to hundredsof thousands of square kilometres. The
350 000 km2 Weddell Sea Polynya which
existed adjacent to the Ronne Ice Shelf
between 1974 and 1976 was the largest
ever observed.
Polynyas provide significant feeding sites
for coastal wildlife, particularly penguins. It
is currently uncertain whether the
shortened glacial tongue will provide similarprotection from sea ice. If not, the polynya
may become reduced in area—or evendisappear completely. There are also fears
that the new configuration may compromise
the salinity of the surrounding ocean, again
with damaging effects on marine life andglobal ocean currents.
How do Polynyas Form?
The occurrence of a polynya depends on
the presence of agents that actively
discourage the presence of permanent sea
ice over a region of ocean. Some polynyas
owe their existence to an upwelling ofrelatively warm water which melts existing
ice and inhibits new ice from forming.
Others occur in regions where sea ice issystematically removed as quickly as it
forms by the action of winds or ocean
currents. Indeed, many polynyas areformed by a combination of these two
mechanisms.
Coastal polynyas such as the Mertz Glacier
Polynya are created through the advectionof sea ice to the north by winds and ocean
currents. This produces a stretch of ice-freewater adjacent to the coastline. Although
the exposed seawater tends to refreeze
almost immediately because of the harshenvironment, the offshore winds are so
persistent that they keep the ice at bay forlong periods. The result is that there isalmost continuous formation of new sea ice

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June 2010

but, because it is rapidly transported
northwards, the region is, in effect, an ice
factory. Salt is expelled from seawater
when it freezes, rendering the underlying
ocean increasingly salty, and therefore
denser. This cold, dense water sinks to theocean floor and eventually exits theSouthern Ocean as part of the global
ocean circulation ‘conveyor’ that distributes
energy, nutrients and gases around theworld. The Mertz Glacier Polynya is one of
the most significant polynyas of this typeon Earth.
Polynyas and their Environment
As well as their impact on global ocean
circulation, coastal polynyas play a majorrole in many important physical andbiological processes in the high-latitude
Southern Ocean.
The open water areas within Antarctic
coastal polynyas are important for marine
mammals such as killer whales (giving
them places where they can surface andbreathe) and sea birds, particularly during
the winter months. Biologically, they arehighly productive and offer ideal conditions
for rapid growth of early-season
phytoplankton blooms. Due to the lack of a
thick ice cover, the polynyas form ‘windows’
through which the ocean can absorb highlevels of sunlight from early spring
onwards. Additionally, the open waters in
the polynya absorb heat from the sun (asopposed to ice which reflects it) thus
helping to discourage surface ice formation.
Many Antarctic penguin colonies areclosely associated with polynyas. In
Eastern Antarctica, for example, more than
90% of Adélie penguin colonies are
situated next to recurrent coastal polynyas
and research shows that changes inpolynya productivity from year to year arereflected in the numbers of penguins in theassociated colonies.
The Future?
The future behaviour of the two icebergs isof great interest. Satellite images show the
recently-calved C-28 to be moving into the
Adélie Depression, a coastal basin situatedto the west of the Mertz Glacier. Although
the Mertz Glacier Polynya occupies only
one thousandth of one percent of theoverall Antarctic sea ice zone at its
maximum winter extent, it is responsible for
1% of the total sea ice production in theentire Southern Ocean.
As previously stated, to the immediate westof the former Mertz Glacier Tongue lies apolynya that produces dense ‘bottom water’on the sea floor which helps to drive global
ocean circulation. The future positions of
the two icebergs may affect this process
and there is concern that, should theyremain in the polynya area, they could
block the formation of the ‘bottom water’.
This would mean less oxygen finding its
way into the deep currents that feed theoceans and would have implications formarine life in the region and beyond.

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GEO Quarterly No 26

Dale Hardy
A spectacular dust storm raged across southern Australia from
Lake Eyre basin across NSW then onwards over the Tasman to
New Zealand whilst spreading northeast over Queensland in late
September 2009.An intense low pressure system formed over The
Great Australian Bight on 22 September extending a front acrossSouth Australia. This front was travelling eastward at 35kts.

Synoptic chart: front over NSW

Image processed with David Taylor's HRPT reader "Ash enhancement"

View from my window during the dust storm and my normal view.

Image from Terra (NASA) dust moving up to Queensland

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The land has been in the grip of drought with very little rainfall in
the preceding months.The strong winds combined with the arid
landscape resulted in millions of tonnes of topsoil being strippedfrom the arid lower lake Eyre Basin and western NSW and thentransported and deposited across NSW. The dust storm went on toreach New Zealand, travelling 2,160 kilometers across the Tasman.
Estimates of 5 tonnes of dust per square km fell in Sydney. The
dust consisted mainly of particles of 18 m and 5 m in size.
Particles of dust are normally between 10 and 100 m in size, ifthey are any bigger they're too heavy to be carried any distance bywinds while any smaller they can stay suspended indefinitely.
Dust storms are common in the arid "red centre" of Australia, butthey rarely reach the populated coastal regions.
Visibility in Sydney was so bad that flights were diverted andharbour ferry traffic disrupted.
Landmarks such as the Opera House were obscured, and many
residents took to wearing masks.
Emergency services reported a surge in calls from people withbreathing problems.
The storm crippled the transportation system, with long delays toflights and bumper-to-bumper traffic on major roads.
Children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems weretold to stay indoors until the dust had cleared later on Wednesday.
It was blown out to sea and up the coast by the strong winds.
Officials said air pollution levels from the dust were the highest
recorded since records began in the 1970s, with 15,500
micrograms of particles per cubic metre.
On a clear day the readings for particulate matter or PM10 isaround 10-20 micrograms per cubic metre. During a bushfire, when
there is heavy smoke around, we might see readings of around
300 to 500 micrograms per cubic metre.
NOAA 19 received at my location

Dust Northwest of New Zealand: NASA Terra

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Group for Earth Observation

Cover and Full Page Images
Front CoverFascinating Metop-A image acquired on the 10:30 UT pass on
March 8, 2010.
image: NOAA CLASS Archive

Inside Front CoverThe image from METOP-A on February 21st 2010 shows ice
breaking up in the Sea of Okhotsk.See page 5 for full details

GEO Quarterly No 26

from one thermal and two visible channels, and has
been rectified to an approximately natural projection toshow the true shape of the UK, at a rectified resolution of
500m per pixel. The different colours of the clouds arecaused by different temperatures, and you can see thedifferences between the countryside and the city, causedby differences in the amount of vegetation. Over central
Wales you may be able to make out what I believe is thestraight line of an aircraft trail (lighter colour) and its
shadow on the ground (darker colour).
For more information on the MODIS system:
http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Images copyright EUMETSAT

For more information on the MODIS L1 Viewer software:

Page 21http://www.satsignal.eu/software/modis-L1-viewer.html

Sumatera and Malysia
This is a very small section of half an orbit's worth of image
data. The resolution is not as high as the MER-FRS data
sets but allows you to examine any section within half an
orbits worth of image data. This section shows Malaysia andSumatera using a single channel. With more experience
using the display software and combining channels moredetail could be revealed.

Back CoverRed SeaThis is a black and white image of the Red Sea using asingle channel centred on 778 nm with a bandwidth of 15
nm. It was chosen because it shows blown sand which is an
important nutrient for the marine systems in the Red Sea
which has few rivers flowing into it.

Shaped by the ebb and flow of the tides, waves and wind,
the area appears very different depending on the time ofday; at times there are kilometres and kilometres of open
mud flats full of life and the next moment, awash withincoming waters from the North Sea. These tidal flats andwetlands give rise to an excellent habit for a wealth ofwildlife, in particular, an estimated 1.5 million migrating
birds.

Page 22

As this satellite image shows, the sandbanks are borderedby relatively deep channels and gullies, which provide aroute for boats crossing between the islands and mainland.

Crater Lake. This was one of my first images from Envisat. I
was attracted to it because I could recognise geographicalfeatures, in this case Canada's Manicouagan Reservoir , I
call it Crater Lake, and the St. Lawrence Seaway.. The image
uses a single channel centred on 778 nm and with abandwidth of 15 nm. I had not learned to combine andcolour channels when I recorded this image.

Page 37
Red Sea Colour. This is a MER_FRS images of the southern
Red Sea. Note the sand being blown from Saudi Arabia
across the sea. This mineral transport and subsequent
enrichment of the sea is important for the primary
production of the seas which may otherwise be marine
deserts.
The Gaza Strip. Not many satellite images show politicalboundaries but here the boundary between Egypt, Gaza andIsrael can be identified. Salt pans in the Dead Sea can also
be seen. This image is a zoomed in section of a larger
MER_FRS images. At its highest resolution irrigation circles
in Iraq can be seen but they are not seen on this small
section taken from the full image.

Page 40
MODIS image of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption
plume14th April 2010, from the Terra satellite

Inside Back CoverThis image of the UK was from data captured by NASA's
MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite on 2010 April 12,
and sent over the EUMETCast data stream. This 1km
resolution data has been processed in David Taylor's MODIS
L1 Viewer software which is in beta development at the timeof writing. The image here is a false-colour composite

The Wadden Sea.
This satellite image shows the ever-moving sandbanks inthe shallow Wadden Sea in the north of the Netherlands.
Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site last year, thisunique region is one of the largest wetlands in the world.

The image shows the southern part of the Wadden Sea
with part of the Dutch mainland on the right and theisland of Texel at the bottom left, and Vlieland andTerschelling to the northwest.
The impact of waves and currents, which carry away
sediment, is slowly changing the layout of these and theother islands further west. For example, the islands ofVlieland and Ameland, which is not visible here but it is
the next island after Terschelling, have moved eastwards
over the centuries and are being eroded on one side andgrowing on the other.
The Wadden Sea, a name that comes from the Dutch 'wad'for mud flat, extends from the south of Texel, along thecoast of Germany to just north of Esbjerg in Denmark, a
total length of some 500 km.
Also visible in the image is the 'Afsluitdijk' - a causewaythat creates a division between the Wadden Sea to thenorth and the Zuiderzee to the south. Built between 1927
and 1933, this causeway dammed off what was a salt
water inlet of the North Sea and turned into a fresh waterlake.
SPOT-4 acquired this image on 8 May 2006 with a spatial
resolution of 20 m. SPOT-4 is supported by ESA as a'Third Party Mission', which means ESA utilises its multimission European ground infrastructure and expertise toacquire, process and distribute data from the satellite to its
wide user community. The SPOT system was designed by
the French space agency (CNES) and is operated by Spot
Image.

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Image courtesy Spot Image

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MODIS L1VIEWER-NEW PROGRAM
FOR NEW EUMETCAST DATADavid Taylor
What is MODIS?
MODIS is the “moderate resolution”
scanner carried on two NASA satellites– AQUA and TERRA – launched in 2002
and 1999. While similar to the AVHRR
scanner familiar on the NOAA series ofweather satellites, instead of only 5transmitted channels there are 36, andinstead of 1.1km resolution, some of
the MODIS channels have 250m
resolution, and all are at least 1km
resolution. Another difference is thatrather then the single detector
assembly used on AVHRR, up to 40
detectors are scanned in parallel on the
MODIS instrument. This means thatthe linear “distortion” seen on theedges of the AVHRR scanned images, isalso present as a “butterfly effect” in
MODIS images, requiring special
processing to remove. The multiple
spectral channels allow processing to
produce a more comprehensive set ofderived images than can be had either
from the five transmitted channels of
the AVHRR or even the twelve channelsof SEVIRI data from the geostationary
Meteosat-8 and Meteosat-9.
How do I get the data?
In late 2009, EUMETSAT started rebroadcasting a subset of the MODISAQUA data on the EUMETCast system. As
you may appreciate, the full data stream
from MODIS could easily take over all theavailable bandwidth on EUMETCast
several times over, so the data is thinned
in three ways before it is sent over
EUMETCast.
The first thinning is to
reduce the geographical coverage from thewhole world to a region covering much ofEurope; the second thinning is that only
half of the 36 available channels are sent;
and the third thinning that the resolutionof all the data is unified at 1km. You may
notice that the file name starts with “thin”!
Even thinned, each five-minute data
chunk,
includinginternal
data
compression, can still occupy up to 90MB
(and 25MB of geolocation data), so you
may need to increase the size of your FSY
database to avoid data loss.
You need to register with EUMETSAT to
get this data, but registration is free.
There is help on completing the required
form on the GEO Web site:
http://www.geo-web.org.uk/eumreg.html

You need to set your system to receive the[EUMETSAT Data Channel 4] data byediting your TelliCast recv-channels.ini
file. You may have already set your system
to receive the “hourly FSD” fromEUMETSAT, in which case there is nofurther editing to do, but if not, you willneed to add two lines to your recvchannels.ini something like:[EUMETSAT Data Channel 4]target_directory=received\Data Channel 4
The exact target location for the received
data may be different on your particularsystem.
It
is
EUMETSAT’s
recommendation that your FSY data isallowed 300MB, so increase your RAMdisk
to 300MB, and alter the relevant line inyour recv.ini file to read:Fig 1:MODIS L1 Viewer browser screen

Air-mass

16

Ash

Classic “124” RGB

www.geo-web.org.uk

Vegetation Index“125” RGB

June 2010

Group for Earth Observation[parameters]

individual pass to process.
In thescreenshot, you can see that the 1155
and 1200 segments have been selected
providing coverage from North Africa
and Italy to Scandinavia, and you get an
impression of the coverage available.
Once the data is selected, you can rightclick the browser window to proceed toprocessing.

file_database_size=300000000
What the MODIS L1 Viewer does
Once you have the data fromEUMETCast, you may wish to use my
MSG Data Manager software for help
with organising that data by removing
old data, placing the data in ayear/month/day directory hierarchy,
and deleting other unwanted data. On
the Setup, Channel Selection, Othertab, you can enable management of
MODIS L1 data, and choose whether tocopy the image data alone, or thegeolocation data as well. For the MODIS
L1
Viewerprogram,theextra
geolocation data isn’t required, so you
can save on disk space by leaving the“Copy M03 geo files” box unchecked.
You can also choose how long the data
should be kept on your system.
The data will then reside in a directory
structure something like:
C:\Images\MODIS-L1\2010\04\28\
And
with
file
names
like:
thin_MOD021KM.P2010118.0945.hdf
The file extension HDF shows that thedata is in a standard HDF format, andin raw format may be viewed byprograms such as the NCSA HDFView
software:http://www.hdfgroup.org/hdf-javahtml/hdfview/

However, the MODIS L1 Viewer offers
much more convenient operation, andmany functions which make the data
more useable such as removing thebutterfly effect, joining segments of apass, and the program can display the
MODIS Fire data which is also available
over EUMETCast.
Browser tab
The first screen you may use in the
MODIS L1 Viewer is the browser
screen:All the passes for a single day arepresented graphically on a single screen
for ease of selection. There is a calendar
control for choosing the day to be
displayed, together with a “Today”
button for quick access to today’s data.
Should you start the program with nocommand-line parameters, today’s data
is displayed. You can also drag-anddrop HDF files from Windows Explorer
onto the Browser view for processing.
Within the browser, you can select toshow either ascending (red) ordescending (blue) passes alone, or both
together. For daytime views, select theascending passes. You can also display
in a different colour the regions to which
you wish to remap the data, shown ingreen here. Most likely you will want to
run the program full-screen to provide
the clearest display.
Using the mouse, you can select one ormore five-minute sections of an

GEO Quarterly No 26

The MODIS L1 Viewer can display both
raw and processed data, in both thenative satellite mapping, and inremapping to user-defined regions andresolutions. The “raw” channels sent
over EUMETCast include both thevisibleandthermalchannels.
Ferdinand Valk supplied a tableshowing how the channels may be used.
Visible channels
1 - 620-670nm – Land-cloud-aerosols
extent2 - 841-876nm – Land-cloud-aerosols
extent5 - 1230-1250nm – Land-cloud-aerosols
properties
6 - 1628-1652nm – Land-cloud-aerosols
properties (faulty)
8 - 405-420nm – ocean
phytoplankton-biochemistrycolour-

9 - 438-448nm – ocean
phytoplankton-biochemistrycolour-10 - 483-493nm – ocean
phytoplankton-biochemistrycolour-12 - 546-556nm – ocean
phytoplankton-biochemistrycolour-15 - 743-753nm – ocean
phytoplankton-biochemistrycolour-26 - 1.360-1.390m – cirrus clouds
water vapour
Thermal channels
20 - 3.660-3.840m – surface/cloud
temperature
23 - 4.020-4.080m – surface/cloud
temperature
27 - 6.535-6.895m – cirrus clouds
water vapour
28 - 7.175-7.475m – cirrus clouds
water vapour
29 - 8.400-8.700m – cloud properties
31 - 10.780-11.280m – surface/cloud
temperature
32 - 11.770-12.270m – surface/cloud
temperature
33 - 13.185-13.485m – cloud top
altitudewww.geo-web.org.uk

By right clicking on any one of thesechannel images a number of options are
revealed, and the particular options may
depend on the particular channels being
viewed. Should you wish to remap data
to a particular region, just right-click
the image and select the remapping
region you want. You can change thename, location and scale of each region
on the Setup tab.
What enhancements are available?
Even at this early stage of the program’s
development there are a number ofenhancements available, although as
more experience is gained the exact
parameters may be tweaked to give thebest results, and I hope that moreenhancements will be added. All of thecurrent enhancements rely on the
combination of three channels, orchannel differences, to produce a falsecolour red-green-blue image.
The Classic RGB enhancement uses thevisible channels 1 and 2 for the Red andGreen components, and the inverse of
the 11m thermal data (channel 31) for
the Blue component of the final image,producing an RGB composite which you
will recognise from the AVHRR datafrom the NOAA satellites. This is a good
general view image, providing a green
display in well-vegetated areas, blue innight time areas, and clouds in yellowwhite colours distinguishing low, warm
cloud from cool high cloud.
The “125” RGB uses the same channels(1 and 2) for the red and green
components, but substitutes channel 5for the thermal component. Becausesnow and ice have different reflectivity
at 1.24m than in the visible
wavebands, snow can be distinguishedwith this combination.
In the “Vegetation Index” composite, thenormalised difference between channels
1 and 2 is used to display the amount ofvegetation in a region. The presence ofchlorophyll in vegetation enhances its
reflectivity in the 0.8m part of thespectrum compared to the 0.6m
region.
The “Air-mass” combination is one usedwith geostationary data, and is used to
distinguish cold air mass from warm,
and moist from dry. As only thermalchannels are used, this combination
works for both daytime and night time
images.
The“Ash”
combination
utilisesdifferences between some of the longer
wavelength thermal channels to
distinguish dust in the atmosphere.
Careful use of colour can also help
distinguish dust from ash, such as thatfrom the recent Eyjafjallajökull eruptionin Iceland.For more information visit:
http://www.satsignal.eu

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GEO Quarterly No 26

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June 2010David Taylor

The information below is based on
experiences at Francis Bell's station near
Guildford UK and on notes andscreenshots kindly provided by Arne van
Belle. As this project is in its early stages,
the information may be inconsistent orincomplete. Any comments or corrections
will be welcome.
Setting up the Dish for Reception
Pointing
A 1.2 m dish or greater is required, pointing
to the 10° east geostationary satellite
position for Eutelsat W2A. There is apointing calculator at
http://www.satlex.de/en/azel_calc.html

First select your country and city, then thesatellite. Alternatively, you can use my
WXtrack program [1]. A 1.0 m dish may
work, but is very critical in alignment.
Figure 1 illustrates the footprint of Eutelsat
W2A while a frequency list for this satellite
may be viewed at the Lyngsat website [2].
Pointing the dish is extremely critical. At thetime of writing, November 2009, the signal
could vary by several decibels throughout
the day, and may become undetectable
during late morning or early afternoon(perhaps 5 dB down on its maximum value
during the evening and early morning).
Figure 2 is a plot showing the signal-tonoise-ratio (SNR / dB) and the Quality (%)
as measured on Arne van Belle's SkyStar
PCI card over a four-day period during
November 2009.
There is a periodic nature to this variation:a sharp drop in the morning, between
09:00 and 11:00 UT, corresponding to aswitch from one uplink station to another,which appears to have a much weaker andmuch more variable signal as received at
the satellite, with a correspondingly weak
downlink signal to us, the users.
Alignment
The easiest method is probably to align thedish first on Eurobird-9A (used for
EUMETCast), located at 9°E then swing it
one degree farther east. As seen from
Edinburgh, the two satellites are just 1.18°
apart. Note that there are many fewer
signals on the Eutelsat W2A high-band,horizontal transponder, so the reading onan analogue meter will be very small.
Worse, the dish may well experiencesignificant pickup from the Eurobird-9A
satellite so, by peaking with an analogue
meter, you will most likely point your dish to
9°E and not 10°E. Using an analogue
meter alone is almost impossible—you

18

Figure 1 - Footprint for Eutelsat W2A at 10.0°E

must drive the LNB so that ‘high-bandhorizontal’ is selected.
If you must use an analogue meter then,with your receiver tuned to EUMETCast,
first locate the Eurobird-9A satellite at 9°E
using your meter, and then retune to the
ANB channel (see below for details) andvery carefully align your dish to 10°E while
using only the Signal Quality reading on
your screen.
If you cannot get the data channel to start
with, it may be better trying to align the dishon a TV transmission from 10°E. A
suggested channel on 10°E is ANB (Arabic
News Broadcast) on 11144 MHz horizontal
polarisation, symbol rate 2442 kS/s,
FEC 2/3. As it is on low band and uses
more power, it will be easier to locate andcheck your system before tuning toEnvisat DDS. However, readers should
check the Lyngsat website [2] for current
details, as channels do change quite
frequently.
Now tweak the dish, either with a proper
digital meter or with your DVB receiver set
on the correct frequency. Remember to set
the LNB position and skew as well as thedish azimuth and elevation for best signal
quality.
Cables and Connections
It's important to note that, because thesatellite transponder is right at the top of
the higher-frequency part of Ku-band, theIntermediate Frequency (IF) is also very
high at 2021 MHz. This means that thesignals in the cable from the LNB to yourreceiver are at over 2 GHz which makes
your selection of cable and connectors
more critical in order to avoid losing too
much signal strength. Keep the cable run
as short as possible, use the minimum
number of connectors, and use the bestsatellite TV cable you can buy. A weaksignal will make it more difficult to get errorfree reception. Also, use an LNB with thelowest noise figure you can get: aim for
0.2dB from a reputable manufacturer.
Changing from a ‘0.6 dB’ NF LNB to a‘0.2 dB’ one increased the signal level, as
measured at the LNB, from 62.4 dBuV to64.9 dBuV (a 2.5dB increase), and a 1 dB
improvement in both Noise Margin (from1 dB to 2 dB) and MER (from 8.8 dB to
9.8 dB or better).
Our Test Setup
Figure 3 pictures David Simmons withcable, a temporary 1.0 m dish, 0.2 dB NF
LNB and Rover ST-4 analyser.
For initial alignment, the dish was pointed
carefully at Eurobird-9A and a calibrated
scale hammered into the grass. The offset
between Eurobird-9A and Eutelsat W2A
was calculated so that the dish could be

Figure 2 - Variations in SNR and Quality over a 4-day period during November 2009www.geo-web.org.uk

June 2010

Group for Earth Observation

working on a frequency-division multiplex
basis (sharing frequencies), each of whichneeds to control its transmission power
levels and frequency to fit in with the other
uplinks on the same transponder. The
central marker is on the 12621 MHz
frequency used by the Enivsat DDS
service. You can readily see that this signal
is not as strong as those from other usersof the same transponder, adding to thedifficulty of receiving that data.

Figure 3 - David Simmons preparing for EnviHamsighted by eye to point at the 10° east
orbital location. With great care, it was justpossible to get a signal, but having theprofessional meter at the dish (or a PC
receiving Eutelsat W2A) allowed finer
adjustments.
Note: When this photo was taken, the
LNBs had just been changed over and theskew angle was not correct. To calculate
the correct skew, use a site like
http://www.dishpointer.com

Enter your location (latitude and longitude),and the satellite 10.0E Eutelsat W1. On
Firefox, the street-finder didn't work for me(it did on MS Internet Explorer) and I had todrag the location marker over from the USA
to Edinburgh). Also, please try to use less
cable than David is holding in thephotograph.
The Transponder Spectrum
The spectrum, and the list of frequencies
on this satellite, revealed that thetransponder is used in a rather different
way to that used for EUMETCast, which
carries a single digital signal, uplinked froma ground station at Usingen. The
EUMETCast spectrum is nominally flat andall the data is multiplexed on to the uplinkat the ground station.

There is no 12621 MHz transponder on theadjacent Eurobird-9A satellite, and thesignals shown in figure 4 each changed instrength in exactly the same way while thedish was being tweaked: so it seems very
unlikely that we are seeing a combinationof signals from two satellites. In addition,
the various channels listed forEutelsat W2A around that frequency arelisted with much less frequency separation
than the usual ~38-39 MHz channelling.
This information is ambiguous on theInternet, though (see the Lyngsat website).
Figure 5 shows parameters measured onDavid Simmons’ DVB analyser.
Configuring the DVB USB Box
Configuring a Dexatek or DVB World USB
box is described at
http://www.satsignal.eu/wxsat/
Dexatek/Dexatek.html#setup

However, you need to change certain
settings as follows:• Satellite: Eutelsat W2A (if you have anolder installation, use Eutelsat W2)• If the 12621 MHz, horizontaltransponder exists, use it. Otherwise,
click on ‘Add TP’ and enter the detailsasFrequency: 12621 MHz
Symbol rate: 5732 KS/s
Polarisation: Horizontal
Punctured code: DVB QPSK 5/6• Use the ‘Lock TP’ button to finalise
your dish alignment (azimuth,
elevation, LNB position, skew) for best
signal quality.
• PIDs are 230 and 231. Pressing theScan PID button should find these,
but you can add them manually.
Early in the morning, at 06:40 UT, on theend of quite a long length of cable (11.2 dB
loss at 2.1 GHz), I saw 56% strength and
61% quality. The very best I recall seeing
was 71/74% quality.

Figure 4 - The Eutelsat W2A bandwidthWith this transponder on Eutelsat W2A,
you can see that the bandwidth is rather
wider, the plot in figure 4 being some
100 MHz wide, and it carries a number ofsignals, some of which may be analogue,
and some digital.
There are likely multiple uplink stations

On a newly configured Windows 2000 PC, I
needed to:• Give the PC Internet access (this was
actually not required, but I was trying
to make the Windows 2000 PC as
close in configuration to the Windows
Vista laptop which we knew to work).
• Put the DVB World USB Adapter
network address into the ‘Trusted’
zone with Zone Alarm.
• Use the Dexatek software to talk to
the DVB World hardware.
www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 26• Give both the Dexatek.exe and
WDDS-receiver.exe programs fullaccess in Zone Alarm.
Configuring a SkyStar PCI Card
The screen shots opposite, provided by
Arne van Belle, take you through theappropriate steps for configuring your card.
First, select the Eutelsat W2A satellite(figure 6). Note that the ‘DiSEqC’ setting
would normally be ‘None’.
Now select or add a transponder on
12621 MHz, Horizontal, 5732 KS/s,
5/6 FEC (figure 7).
Next, scan for PIDs. If a scan function is
not available, enter PIDs as decimal, withvalues 230 and 231 (figure 8). Note thatyour UC MAC address will not be blank,
but has been obscured here.
Finally, once data starts flowing, thestatistics screen should look something likefigure 9. Although the data rate shows as
being in excess of 7.1 Mb/s in the figure,this data may include files which are notavailable to the amateur user; so eventhough data is flowing, your Envisat DDS
receiver software may not show an active
file.
The screenshots can also be viewed on the
Web athttp://www.satsignal.eu/wxsat/
EnvisatDDS/rx-skystar.html

Installing the Envisat DDS software
Detailed notes are given in the ESA
documentation. We noted however, that:• We needed to create the RX directory
manually• The RX directory must not terminate
with a backslash (‘\’) character• It was necessary to set the IP address
to match the DVB World box (could
have altered the DVB box address but
this would have stopped EUMETCast
working).
• It may be necessary to open the
security on the RX directory.
• Be sure that your PC is set not to turnoff the hard disks after 20 minutes!
This is the default for Windows Vista,
but you need to set it to a much
longer interval, or better, to ‘Never’.
How to do this for Windows XP
http://bucarotechelp.com/
computers/wintips/93081403.asp

How to do this Windows Vista
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/29236235/
Disable-Hard-Disk-Drive-Turns-Off

At the end of the official tests we had asituation where three PCs had been tested
at Francis Bell's location. My Vista portable
PC worked correctly, Francis's Windows2000 PC worked correctly, but Francis's
Dell Vista PC worked only intermittently.

19

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

Figure 5 - Typical parameters displayed on David Simmons’ DVB analyser

Figure 6 - The Edit Satellite Window

Figure 7 - The Edit Transponder Window

Figure 8 - The Data Services Window

I did think I had resolved the situation when
I turned off the IPv6 on the DVB WorldUSB box and the system started receiving
data. But shortly after, the system stopped
again. It had had some errors due tomissed data from the Eutelsat W2Asatellite, but it also had errors whichappeared to be permission errors. The log
files have been sent to ESA for further
analysis. I hope I'm missing something
really simple which is stopping this PC fromworking!
During subsequent operation the system
had been receiving only a very small

20

Figure 9 - The Setup4PC Screen

number of image files—and then seemed
to grind almost to a halt. Further work
during March 2010 cleared unnecessary
applications which were running in the
background, deleted many old unnecessary
files, deleted a suspect virus protection andinstalled Microsoft's latest virus protection,
tidied everything and then defragmented
the hard drive.
Now the really good news. The system
now runs to near perfection with hardly amissing image.
You will have seen the splendid images

www.geo-web.org.uk

from the 300 m resolution data in
GEO Quarterly 25, and here on the next 2
pages as well as page 37.
References
1 www.satsignal.eu/software/wxtrack.htm
2 www.lyngsat.com/ew2a.html

Acknowledgements
My thanks for Francis Bell, David
Simmons, Arne van Belle and John Tellick
for their facilities, help and expertise during
the tests, and to Arne van Belle for valued
input to this article.

June 2010

Group for Earth Observation

www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 26

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June 2010

EUMETCast
On-Line Registration
Guide
If you require to register as a first-time user for
any of the free EUMETCast data streams such as
MSG, NOAA AVHRR, Metop etc., or need torenew 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 the official
EUMETCast on-line registration form, which canotherwise prove somewhat tricky to locate.

GEO Helplines
Douglas Deans
Dunblane, Perthshire, SCOTLAND
All aspects of weather satellites from APT, HRPT
to Meteosat-8 DVB/EUMETCast systems.
• telephone:(01786) 82 28 28• e-mail: dsdeans@btinternet.com
John Tellick
Surbiton, Surrey, ENGLAND
Meteosat-8 advice - registering for the various
MSG services, hardware and software installationand troubleshooting. John will also field generalqueries about any aspect of receiving 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,
co-ax,connectors, mounting hardware etc. and has
also done a lot of work with the orbiting satellites.
Geoff has been a EUMETCast Meteosat-8 user forsome time and is familiar with David Taylor’s MSG
software; he should be able to share his
experiences with newcomers to this branch of thehobby.
• Tel: (01244) 818252• e-mail: gw3atz@btopenworld.com
Mike Stevens
Portland, Dorset, England.
Advice offered on EUMETCast (MSG and Metop)and APT.
• email: mikeg4cfz@mypostoffice.co.uk
Guy Martin G8NFU
Biggin Hill NW Kent, ENGLAND
Guy is prepared to advise anyone who wishing toreceive 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
restritricting telephone contact to the period 7.009.00 pm in the evenings.

Group for Earth Observation

Internet
News/Discussion
GroupsThere are a numerous Internet-based discussion
groups available to weather satellite enthusiasts.
You can join any of these by sending an e-mail tothe appropriate address, with a request to
subscribe. Indeed, a blank e-mail containing theword ‘subscribe’ in its Subject line is all that isrequired. Some of the more useful groups andtheir contact addresses are listed below.
APT Decoder
This is a group where users of Patrik Tast’s
APTDecoder can share information and problems.
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), Earthobservation satellites and any GEO-related matter.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/GEO-Subscribers/
Satsignal
An end-user self help group for users of David
Taylor's Satellite Software Tools (SatSignal,
WXtrack, GeoSatSignal, HRPT Reader,GroundMap, MSG Data Manager, AVHRRManager 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/
METOP
A forum for users of high-resolution AHRPT datafrom the MetOp satellite, available via
EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/METOP/
AVHRR
A forum for users who download high-resolution
EARS-AVHRR data from the NOAA polar orbiting
weather satellites via EUMETCast.

GEO Quarterly No 26

The Copy Deadline for

GEO Quarterly No 27
is Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Editor is always delighted to receive
articles and images for inclusion in GEO
Quarterly. These can relate to any aspect ofEarth 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 theeditor in electronic format (e-mail attachment,
CD, DVD).
Please note, however, that major articles
which contain large numbers of satellite
images, photographs or other illustrations
should be submitted as early as possible, sothat 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 Windows metafile and 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 the individual, original
images, in one of the formats describedabove: these are essential for page make-up
purposes.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AVHRR/ATOVSA Group for discussions about using ATVOS data.
Data from the whole world is available from
CLASS (www.class.noaa.gov) and for an extended
Europe, via EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ATOVS/
Weather Satellite Reports
This group provides weekly reports, updates andnews on operational aspects of weather satellites.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/weather-satellite-reports/
WXtoImg
Users of the WXtoImg software package for
capturing and imaging NOAA APT can air theirproblems, discuss its features and ask questions
about it.

Submission of Copy
All materials for publication should be sent to
the editor,
Peter Green‘Hollowtree’
Eggesford, Devon EX18 7QX, England.
Tel:01769 580 700
The most efficient way to do this is as email
attachments to the following address
geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

And finally . . .
if you do have material ready for the next
issue of GEO Quarterly, please submit it assoon as it is ready—do not wait till thedeadline above: this will simply create an
editorial log-jam and delay publication.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wxtoimg-l/

www.geo-web.org.uk

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GEO Quarterly No 26

Oil Spill in the Gulf of
Mexico Nears the CoastPeter Green/Arne van BelleA massive oil slick in the Gulf of
Mexico continued spreading on April
29, 2010, moving perilously close to
shore, according to news reports. The
U.S. Coast Guard attempted controlledburns on some of the oil to prevent its
spread, but had to halt the process due
to high winds. Meanwhile, the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration constructed a domeand-pipe system to contain the spreadof oil at the sea floor.
This EVNVISAT image captured by
Arne van Belle shows the oil slick justoff the Louisiana coast. The image
shows a wide-area view of the oil slick..
The oil slick appears as dull grayinterlocking comma shapes, one
opaque and the other nearlytransparent. The northwestern tip of
the oil slick almost touches the

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Mississippi Delta. Sunglint—the
mirror-like reflection of the Sun off thewater—enchances the oil slick’s
visibility.
The oil slick resulted from an explosionthat occurred on April 20, 2010, on the
Deepwater Horizon rig, in which 11
people lost their lives. Two days after
the explosion, the rig sank to the ocean
floor.

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Harry H Arends
This article originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of the Dutch publication De Kunstmaan

During our September 2009 meeting, Arne van Belle showed us apackage containing a new ASUS motherboard (figure 1). The small
size (17 cm square by 3 cm high) and low power consumption
appealed to me. Similarly, my eye was immediately taken by thenumerous connectors at the back: as well as the standard PS2,
VGA and Ethernet, there were also eight USB 2.0 ports, S/PDIF,
HDMI, SurroundSound and eSATA connections. Additionally, theboard also possessed two USB ports and audio connectors on thefront panel.
A maximum of 4 GB RAM can be installed on to this motherboard.
The type of memory used is DDR2-667/800. Be aware that a
Windows-32 system can address only 3 GB of RAM. If using Linux
there is no such restriction. The video chip integrated into theboard is the NVIDEA GeForce 9300 and is Windows-7 compatible.
If you have an old computer housing lying around, you can use
this, along with its existing ATX power supply.

The total cost could well be reduced by up to £50 if you make useof an old PC case, reduce the RAM to 2 GB and decide on asmaller hard drive. To complete the system, you will also need akeyboard (PS2) and mouse which, after installation, could be
replaced by a Bluetooth version using the integrated BT. A screen
is also needed. These are not included in the table because thesystem will be used for unattended reception and processing of
EUMETCast imagery. Most people will have these items lying
around somewhere, anyway. It doesn't have to look pretty as longas it is functional.
Construction
The housing I used was an ISK300-65 from Antec with an external
19 volt DC power supply (figures 2, 3).

To connect storage media, the board possesses three SATA300
connectors, making it possible to install either three hard drives or
two hard drives plus an optical drive. The optical drive could evenbe a Blu-Ray player as drivers are available. The operating systemI will be using is either LINUX-UBUNTU or VISTA-Ultimate.
The current shopping list, with prices from April 2010, is:
ASUS AT3N7A-I Motherboard£ 98

Kingston HyperX 4GB memory(KVR800D2N6K2/4G)£ 90

Samsung Spinpoint 500GB£ 60

Samsung SN-S083B slimline£ 22

Antec ISK 300-65 Housing£ 54

Total cost

£324

Figure 2 - The empty casing

A DC/DC convertor was installed within the housing to provide all
the different voltages to the ATX power connector; it is located in
the upper part of the housing shown in figure 2.
The connector on the right hand side of figure 3 is, despite its small
size, capable of delivering 12V, 3.6A; 5V, 2A; 3.3V, 1A and -12V,
0.5A; a total of 65 watts. Before positioning the motherboard,
remove the optical and hard drive mounting plate by undoing twoscrews on the front and one at the back. The upper part of theplate has space for two 2.5-inch hard drives while the lower partcan be used to house a Slimline optical drive (figure 4).
Before I positioned the motherboard, I first stuck a couple of stripsof plastic tape on to the metal where the board was to be mounted
to prevent a possible short-circuit between board and the case.

Figure 3 - The DC/DC converter

Figure 1 - The motherboard, hard drive and optical drive24

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Figure 4 - Optical and hard disc drive mounting

Figure 5 - The rear end-plate viewed from inside the housing

Figure 7 - The mounted motherboard

Figure 6 - Rear end connectors

The next step is to prepare the motherboard for fitting out. The
board comes with a new panel for the back of the case (figure 5).
Be careful not to damage or bend this and fix it in place. Take carefollowing the assembly that all the ‘strange' projections are bentslightly inwards. This ensures that all connectors make good earth
contact with the body of the case (figure 7).
Figure 8 - The Kingston DDR RAM

Before you go further, check first that the CPU fan feed is linked tothe connector labeled CPU-FAN on the motherboard. If this isforgotten, there's a chance that the processor could overheat
and die.
After sliding all cables aside you can fit the board in place, after
which it is secured by means of four screws. Don't turn these too
hard as there is the possibility that they could break off or theboard could be damaged.
The next cable to be mounted is the housing fan connecter, whichgoes to CHA-FAN. If required, a third fan can be connected to
PWR-FAN.
The next step is fitting the RAM. Depending on your system,
values from 512 MB to 4 GB are possible, where 512 MB is theabsolute minimum. To get a reasonable performance, a minimumof 1 GB of RAM should be installed. Windows-7 32-bit needs aminimum of 1 GB and the 64-bit version at least 2 GB to get aworking system. Using a Linux OS, 512 MB of RAM memory could
be enough.
However, if the PC is going to be used for receiving and handling
EUMETCast data, one should follow these guidelines:• Receiving data only 512 MB• For receiving and handling MSG data, 1 GB is required• For the above plus AVHRR/Metop, 2 GB is the absolute
minimum
Figure 8 shows the 2 x 2GB memory from Kingston that I used,providing a total of 4 GB. Unfortunately 533 MHz memory cannot
be used; the minimum speed should be 667 MHz but for best
performance 800 MHz is recommended. Place these in the twoorange coloured slots at the lower side of the board. First take carethat the brackets on either side of the connector point outwards,
position the modules so that the indents line up and then firmly

Figure 9 - DDR RAM slots

push them down. If inserted correctly, the locking brackets should
move into place. See figure 9 and the following URL
www.kingston.com/installmemory

for more information. Repeat this for the second module, if used.
Now connect the two power supply cables. The large one inserted
into EATXPWR and the smaller second one into ATX12V. Next all
the front panel cables are installed. The two extra USB connectors
fit on to USB910B. The connection for the power-reset knob andthe various lamps are connected to F_PANEL. All audio
connections go to AAFP.

Figure 10
SATA300 connectors

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The front panel also has an eSATA
connector but the motherboard doesn’t haveone. To use the connector as a standard
SATA, put the cable into SATA3 for the time
being (figure 9). The next step is preparing
installation of the optical and hard drive.
Place the two SATA cables into SATA1 andSATA2. If not used for the front SATA
connector SATA3 could be used for asecond hard drive.

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Figure 11 - HD mounting plate screw

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June 2010

Figure 12 - Mounted optical drive

Now detach the hard drive mounting plate by removing the screw
indicated by the arrow (figure 11), insert the optical drive andsecure it with four screws (figure 12). Test fit it into the housing tocheck for correct alignment before screwing the drive firmly into
place.
After this, assemble the hard drive mounting plate and reattach thetwo units, place inside the housing and secure with the threescrews, two at the front and one at the rear. Don’t forget to guide
all the SATA and power cables to the top (figure 12).
Then, as a final step, connect all the cables to the drives. During all
your work, try to ensure that cables are arranged neatly. Not only
will it look good, it will make it much easier for you should you later
have to correct a fault if something goes wrong. Carry out a final
check that all cables are pressed firmly in place and all screws aretight. Leave the top off the system for the moment.

Figure 13 - The completed built systemcomputer’s power-up display and react to it. Connect a keyboard toenter the BIOS and apply power to the system—and watch out thatno smoke signals appear. If all goes well you’ll see a message fromthe motherboard manufacturer.
I was interested in the unit’s power consumption and therefore
inserted a watt meter between the mains outlet and the power
supply. With the system on standby, consumption wasapproximately 7.5 W but after applying power the reading rose toslightly under 24 W. During installation of the OS, using both drives,the consumption never became more than 33 W.

Now’s the time to fire up the system for the first time, but firstconnect a screen and switch it on to ensure that you can see theHarry H. Arends is Editor in chief, Werkgroep Kunstmanen

Windy EU?
Anthony LoweIs the image on the left showing local noise or have NOAA
started putting the Isobars on when transmitting the image
from the satellite?
Here at my location in Haydock, St Helens, Merseyside I am
using an R2ZX fed by a crossed dipole at around 18 feetabove ground. I have experienced this several times andimages have been totally wiped out for 6-8 minuets at atime.
Unfortunately Anthony we believe you have a very active
DIYer near you. Les Hamilton believes this to be a case of
the phantom electric driller!

STOP PRESSGEO has added a further rally to our forthcoming events
Newbury Radio Rally
20th June Newbury Radio Rally. This is a large and popularradio rally and GEO will be exhibiting for the first time. The
location is the showground close the M4 Junction16. For
details contact rally@nadars.org.uk or visit
www.nadars.org.uk

We have been contacted by a lady from the Weston-SuperMare area who is wishes to dispose of a large satellite dish (5'diam) plus framework. A Quadrifillar Helix antenna, anothersmall antenna and a directional antenna which is still
mounted on the roof of her house.Plus various bits andpieces, connectors etc. If you are interested please contact theeditor. geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

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Part one David PainterThere are an unknown number of active volcanoes on earth
today, some estimates put the figure at about 1500
classified and “active” sites that are known to have someform of current, or very recent activity, it is very important
to note that the most dangerous volcanoes may be those notyet recognized as volcanoes. The definition of an active
volcano or even “recent” depends upon your point of view;
recent is referred to in volcanological terms as “Holocene” oras having had volcanic activity within the last 12,000 years.
And the definition of “activity” is some form of measurable
volcanic emission within a “recent” period. The simplest
volcanic definition is “A volcano is an opening, or rupture, ina planet’s surface or crust, which allows hot, molten rock,ash, and gases to escape from below the surface.”

history, so there are a massive variety of magnitudes andtypes of volcanic sources contributing to ouratmosphere.Volcanoes are not the simple “cone shaped”
structures as seen in children’s books, but are usually very
complex and interacting structures that occupy vast areas of
the worlds crust; both above and below the earth’s oceans
where the actual scale of volcanic activity is simply
unknown and unmonitored, an estimated ¾ of the Earth’s
magmatic output is produced at undersea vents and oceanic
ridges, which also produce vast quantities of volcanic gasses
that are dissolved into the worlds oceans and rivers; some ofthese gasses do find their way into the atmosphere.
Classic woodcut print of Mt Fuji (C1930), Rainstorm
Beneath the Summit Sanka hak?

Emi Koussi (Image1page 29) volcano is located at SE end of
the Tibesti Range forms the highest summit of the Sahara.
The volcano contains three calderas, it is an impressive
example of a volcanic complex containing 100’s possibly
1000’s of volcanic sites.
The Smithsonian (National museum of natural historyUnited States) is home to the Global Volcanism Programme(GVP), and it puts the number of currently erupting
volcanoes as between 100 to 160 per decade, or roughly 20
or so observable volcanoes erupting at any one time; thedefinition of an “eruption” varies depending upon the
volcanic site, and the scale of eruptions depends upon thetype of volcano. Volcanoes whilst not by definition “erupting”
still normally produce volcanic gasses at sometimes massive
volumes, the best known volcanic gasses are CO2 (Carbon
dioxide) and SO2 (Sulphur dioxide), other common gasses
are Hydrogen sulphide, Methane and Carbon monoxide;
more exotic gasses include Helium and Neon. Many
volcanoes erupt and go unobserved or unreported, some like
Stromboli (Italy) have never stopped erupting in recorded

Image 3 Fuji Lightnings below the summit

Image 2 Some of the worlds volcanoes represented on Google Earth (Copyright Google)

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The effects of this unknown number of volcanic sites on ourplanets surface and oceans is being researched, but ishampered by the lack of reliable data and the difficulty ofactually getting near an active volcanic site. Not only theterrain of some of these sites makes them difficult to visit,
but various other political and physical hazards combine to
make some of these sites almost impossible to visit for any
length of time; not to mention the fact that the object ofyour attention may try to kill you while you are there. Many
volcanologist’s have died trying to understand this part ofour planets ecosystem and many apparently well known
sites are still little understood,making sense of the data is areal challenge, the main objective being to safeguard life andlimit damage to property.
Image 4 Gas capture this shows how the volcanic gases are
sampled in the active crater of Oldoinyo Lengai.

June 2010

audience notices. The recent activities of Redoubt (Alaska),
Kilauea (Hawaii), Chaiten (Chile), Galeras (Colombia) aresome volcanoes that have hit the headlines; but there aremany other volcanic sites that are hardly, if ever mentioned
outside volcanology circles. Newsworthy and spectacular
images of erupting gas clouds and ash plumes are the“classic” view of volcanoes most people see, but if you noticewhen you next look, without exception they all seem to be“daylight images”. The recent events of Eyjafjallajokull
volcano (image 4 below opposite) in Iceland have proved thepoint nicely, lots of daylight footage, not many ash images
and no publicly available infra-red imagery.
Augustine Volcano (image 5) is a 4,100-foot-tall, 7-mile-wide
stratovolcano. This eruption was captured by NASA’s Terrasatellite in 2006. Augustine’s dome collapsed in 1883,
during its largest historical eruption. It has been erupting
for at least 40,000 years.

Image 5 Augustine Volcano captured by NASA’s Terra satellite in 2006 (Copyright NASA)

Image 4 Gas capture (Credit: University of New
Mexico)The basic method of monitoring volcanic activity is using
seismography and the “physical” sciences, listening to avolcanoes seismic signature and observing changes in an
individual volcanoes seismology; monitoring lava and gas
output and temperature in an attempt to predict what state
the giant enigma is presently in. Generally speaking thebasic physical methods for monitoring volcanoes haven’tchanged since man first encountered one, only the
instruments have; It is still very hard and potentially
dangerous work. This means that relatively few volcanoes
are comprehensively monitored, the Hawaiian Islands are an
example, they are easy to get to, it’s a nice place, and as aresult the USGS seems to carry out a tremendous amount ofresearch at Mauna Loa volcano observatory, rather thansome-where more inaccessible like Erta Ale (Ethiopia ) or
Bouvet Island (South Atlantic).
Volcanic remote sensing
I initially thought I would find it easy to find evidence that
remote sensing is being used to continuously to monitor
volcanoes, as it provides a global and safe way to monitor
volcanic activity 24hours a day, but I was to bedisappointed. It seems there is much evidence to show
remote sensing is only rarely used for general study of
volcanic emissions, the main applications of remote sensing
are when there is a major newsworthy event, after a volcano
has increased it’s activity levels to a point where a wider

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Volcanic weather
Volcanic eruptions and volcanic weather effects have been
noted in very ancient texts, although these effects have notbeen named as “Volcanic” until the Sicilian Island Vulcano
gave it’s godly name to the phenomena at an unknown
juncture in Roman History. Evidence of major volcanic
weather events are not hard to find in human history, andnot surprisingly it’s not good news when volcano’s make thenews.
Many readers may have seen real volcanoes up close, or atleast seen the classic cone shapes of Mt Fujiama (Japan),
MT Ruapehu (New Zealand), Kilimanjaro (Tanzania), Mt Etna
or Stromboli (Italy); all of these names are famous for being
volcanoes. But what is the other thing they are infamous
for? They are all infamous for affecting our climates weather.
In more modern times; air transportation due to the fear ofash ingestion into the engines of passenger aircraft.
A pyrocumulus is a cloud (Image 6)that is formed throughintense convective lifting of gasses and air and ash, it rises
in an unstoppable column that de-stabilises the local
meteorology and can cause intense lightening and rain, as
well as blanketing vast areas in ash deposits.
Before the invention of aircraft in april of 1815 a
cataclysmic eruption of Tambora Volcano in Indonesia
occurred, noted as the most powerful eruption in modern

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Image 1 Norm-Emi Koussi C5C4C1 19.80 N, 18.53 E ; summit elevation 3415 m ; Stratovolcano Copyright NOAA

Image 4 This false colour Image shows Iceland during daylight hours prior to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruptions

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mount Pinatubo (Indonesia), slightly cooler than usual
temperatures were recorded worldwide and the brilliant
sunsets and sunrises have been attributed to this eruptionthat sent fine ash and gases high into the stratosphere,
forming a large volcanic cloud that drifted around theworld. The sulphur dioxide (SO2) in this cloud, estimatedat about 22 million tons combined with water to form
droplets of sulphuric acid, blocking some of the sunlightfrom reaching the earth and thereby cooling temperaturesin some regions by as much as 0.5 degrees C. Another
eruption the size of Mount Pinatubo could affect theweather for years and cause widespread disruption not yet
seen in our life-times. And much more recently theEyjafjallajokull volcano has caused massive disruption to
air traffic due to airborne ash deposits.
Volcanic Age?

Image 6 Pyrocumulus cloud. Picture Wikipedia

recorded history (yet). Weather records indicated that
Tambora’s volcanic cloud emissions (image 7) lowered global
temperatures by as much as 3 degrees C, this was due tothe large volumes of gas, ash and water vapour. Even a year
after the eruption, most of the northern hemisphere
experienced sharply cooler temperatures during the summer
months and in parts of Europe and in North America 1816
was known as “the year without a summer.” The red
Norwegian sunsets caused by this are said to have inspired
Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream”
Simulation of the effects of the 1815 Mount Tambora
eruption, an estimated release of energy equivalent
20,000,000 MT of TNT . The circles on the maps show the
thickness of volcanic ash fall.
A more recent event was in June 1991, the eruption ofSome sources put the oldest known currently active
volcano as Mt Etna Italy (Image 8), it’s exact age is
unknown but some sources say it is between 500,000 700,000 years old, and it has been affecting the Earth’s
weather every single day, in one way or another for all thattime. There is strong evidence that Stromboli (Italy) has
been continuously erupting for several thousand years at alow level, all the while producing volcanic gasses. In
contrast one of the most short lived volcanoes yet recorded
was “Paricutin” in Mexico, it started eruptions in 1943 in
front of a farmer and his wife, and became extinct in 1952
after reaching a height of 423metres, three people were
killed during it’s short life all by lightening during
eruptions.
Volcanic destructionMore severe weather in the form of volcanic ash caused thedemise of Pompeii (Italy), an eruption of Mt Vesuvius (Italy)
in AD79 wiped out vast areas of the Mediterranean
covering them in thick layers of ash and pumice. Krakatoa(Indonesia) in 1883 exploded during a volcanic eruption
with such cataclysmic force that it was distinctly heard as
far away as Perth in Western Australia, about 1,930 miles
away, and the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, about
3,000miles away. According to official records, 165 villages
and towns were destroyed and 132 seriously damaged, atleast 36,417 people died in the aftermath, and many
thousands were injured by the eruption, mostly from thetsunamis that followed the explosion. The eruption

Image 7 Tambora-explosion (Image courtesy of NASA and Clive Oppenheimer)

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destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa in theprocess. It is unknown what secondary volcanic activity wascaused by this eruption or the volume of gasses that werereleased as there are no records.

Image 8. The eruption of Mt. Etna was overflown by the MODIS instrument on
the NASA Aqua satellite on 28 October 2002. (NASA)

Lake Nyos (west of Cameroon) released several cubic
kilometers of volcanic CO2 from the depths of the lake in
1986, this killed every air breathing animal and human, an
estimated 1800 people within it’s vicinity. Some victims were
found as far away as 25km from the lake in an event now
called a “lake overturn” or phreatic eruption. Large volcanic
gassing events like this are still a real threat today to thoseliving near lakes Nyos, Monoun and Kivu (image 9); and it issuspected there maybe other as yet undiscovered volcanic
lakes that may be prone to “Lake overturn” in Africa ,and
other places worldwide. Although the understanding of these“Lake overturns” is improving they, in volcanic terms are a
relatively newly discovered phenomena; they are being
monitored currently by ground based means and attempts
are being made to de-gas the lakes.

GEO Quarterly No 26

The massive eruption of the Laki volcano in 1783 caused
one of the greatest disasters in living history (Image 10)
Volcanic gasses are sometimes a major threat for months
or years, rather than in a single event; in 1783 Laki or
Lakagígar in southern of Iceland erupted, the previous
eruption between 934-940AD released an estimated 219
million tons of Sulphur dioxide gas, one of the largest everestimated gas releases from a volcano to date. The 1783
eruption was to be different, during the first six months it
spewed an estimated 14km3 (3.4cu/mi) of basalt lava, it
then changed to releasing massive amounts of gas. Again
estimated quantities are 8million tons of hydrogen fluoride
and 120million tons of sulphur dioxide before it ended
eruptions in 1785, approximately equivalent to threetimes the total annual European industrial output in2006. The human effects were devastating, the “Laki haze”
travelled across Europe and a reported 23,000 people diedin the U.K as a result of the Sulphur dioxide poisoning inAugust/September 1783. Iceland suffered terribly, anestimated 20-25% of the population died in the famineand fluorine poisoning after the fissure eruptions ceased,around 80% of sheep, 50% of cattle and 50% of horses
died because of dental and skeletal fluorosis from the
8million tons of hydrogen fluoride that was released. 1783
still ranks as one of the most unusual weather events everrecorded, and the disruption and loss of life waswidespread across the world, it has been suggested it
contributed to the French revolution in 1789. The Lakieruption illustrates that low energy, large volume, long
duration basaltic eruptions can have climatic impacts
greater than large volume explosive silica-rich eruptions,most of us are familiar with images of.
Today, a I look at the news I see that our volcanic planetis really making the news again as Iceland shows us what
our modern age has yet to learn to cope with, in less thana week Europe has been paralysed by an event outside
our control. The reason to “monitor remotely” theactivities of our volcanic planet cannot be overstated; andas I investigate the various resources available on theinternet I am disappointed by the lack of fresh data andthe lack of infra-red images from satellite sources, this I
will explore in Part 2.
Volcano Live - Probably the best and most up-to-date
global coverage website on the internet about volcanoes.
http://www.volcanolive.com/volcanolive.html

Smithsonian Institute - Global volcanism programme –numbers of volcanoes
http://www.volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?faq=03

USGS Volcano Hazards program - Mainly US volcanoes(Hawaii, Alaska)
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/

USGS Volcanic gasses
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

European volcanological society - Europes volcano
website.
http://www.sveurop.org/gb/menu/fr_menu.htm

World organisation of Volcano observatories –Organistation for volcanic observatories
http://www.wovo.org/

Oregon state – Volcano world
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/volcanoes/index.html
Image 9 View of Lake Kivu and Idjwi island from Landsat 7 satellite imagery(1999-2003) (Copyright NASA)

Continued on page 33

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This is an Envisat image received by Francis Bell. It shows the southern part of the Mozambique Channel with part of Madagascar on the right. The small
isolated island to the west of Madagascar which appears as a light blue circle is the subject of this issue’s Quarterly Question.

Left image :- EARS AVHRR image
Centre image :EARS ATOVS image
Right image :For full details of these images see Dougkas Deans Computer Corner page 42

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Image 10 Laki or Lakagígar (Craters of Laki, estimated to have killed over two million people globally, making it the deadliest volcanic eruption in thehistory of mankind."(Wikipedia)

Image 11 Infra-red Channel 3 NOAA19, shows ash plume from volcano and other plumes from other volcanic sites.(Copyright NOAA)

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Robert Moore

Since ATOVS data first became available through MSG-1
and MSG-2, I have received them, and occasionally viewed
them, using David Taylor's ATOVS Reader. But I have neverused the data. My reading of the email lists suggests that
few if any of the amateur fraternity in GEO do use ATOVS
data. This is frustrating because the data are obviously veryrich. From the EUMETSAT website we learn that ‘ATOVS
data include temperature and humidity profiles, cloud top
temperatures and pressures, and much else. Thus thesedata can provide a three dimensional view of theatmosphere.
‘More specifically, AMSU-A channel 1 at 23.8 GHz provides
information from the surface. Clearly, the high variability ofsurface emissivity in the microwave region allows
discrimination between different surface types. AMSU-A
channel 8 at 55.5 GHz provides information of theatmospheric state in the region of 120 hPa (atapproximately 15 kilometers altitude)’

But is any of this data accessible to the amateur user? Infact my first question would be whether all these data arealready assimilated into products that we can use without
ourselves having to engage in any processing? For example,
we might expect these data to contribute to the productionof the SATREP models which we can use at
http://www.satreponline.org/

or, perhaps, to the basic weather charts produced bymeteorological offices across Europe and beyond.
Secondly, is it possible for the amateur user to process thedata in order to understand it (e.g. what is the temperatureor humidity at a given altitude?) or to produce threedimension models of the atmosphere covered by the ATOVS

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imagery? I suspect that the software needed to do the latter
would be highly complex and perhaps superfluous because I
am sure the professionals are more interested in numericalinputs to their models than in pictures.
David Taylor has produced fine software which enables us tovisualise the data. We can see the various channels (20 for
HIRS, 15 for AMSU-A and 5 for AMSU-B) and we can read
off the temperature at any given position: but not thealtitude. So how do we read altitude, and interpret theimages, some of which differ only by a subtle change ofshade? It may be that to produce sensible output we need to
combine data from the different ATOVS sources. For
example the NASA website says of AMSU-A that:‘The data from this instrument are used in conjunction
with the HIRS to calculate the global atmospherictemperature and humidity profiles from the Earth's
surface to the upper stratosphere, approximately a 2millibar pressure altitude (48 kilometres or 29.8 miles).
The data are used to provide precipitation and surface
measurements, including snow cover, sea ice
concentration, and soil moisture.’
http://goespoes.gsfc.nasa.gov/poes/instruments/amsu_a.html

This strikes me as being well beyond the capacity of anamateur meteorologist sitting at home at his or her PC. The
descriptions of the functions of the other instruments
indicate equally complex usage.
So, I suppose thirdly, I am bound to ask whether or not it isuseful for the average GEO member to receive and process
ATOVS data? If anyone can answer ‘Yes’ to this question, I
hope they will write for a future issue of GEOQ and explain
how they use the ATOVS data.

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David Taylor•With the TDRSS satellites, you canrename them from the name inyour Kepler data, and theprogram can display the names
and footprints in separate colours.
Rather than the sloping
presentation of typicalgeostationary satellites, renamed
satellites are displayed withhorizontal text (as only three will
typically be displayed).
•Michel Casabonne’s backgroundmap includes the South Atlantic
Anomaly – a higher radiation
region.
•The ground track of a satellite canbe displayed with +/- 1.5 orbits,
and entry and exit markers tosolar-eclipse periods can be
added. These are the whitesquare brackets “[” and “]” in thescreen-shot above.
•You can overlay country and stateboundaries on the standard map
projection.

WXtrack has been a very popular satellite tracking
program over the last decade, with a lot of input fromthe users being used both to enhance the program andto meet today’s needs. You will find WXtrack used inschools and universities, in both amateur andcommercial installations, and at space centres acrossthe world, particularly the free version. Following an
exchange of ideas with Michel Casabonne over the last
few months, WXtrack has been developed to include
options to allow you to have a display very similar tothat seen on the NASA Mission Control Center wall
display. This has involved quite a bit of programming,
so you will find that some of the enhancements are
only available in the registered version of the program.
Here’s what’s new or special for the ISS/STS missions –you can turn these features on or off to suit your own
needs.

•F11 provides a near full-screen display (or you can use theright-click pop-up menu). Press F11 again to revert to thestandard display size.
•There is an extra item in the Tools menu, to display the weather
in real-time at selected ISS locations, such as Shuttle landingsites.
May I say “thanks” to all who have helped with thesedevelopments, either by suggesting enhancements, by beta
testing, or by registering the program to support its
continued development.

•There is a “blackboard” display of the status of theselected primary satellite. This can be any satellite you
choose, not just the ISS or current Space Shuttle flight.
The blackboard can be in either the one-column or thetwo-column format seen at the control centres, andlocated at either the left or right side of the image.
•A display of GMT (i.e. UTC) at the top centre of thescreen. You can set the colour and vertical location ofthis display.
• Display of Mission Elapsed Time (MET)•Michel Casabonne has kindly provided the custom icons
for the International Space Station (ISS), Shuttle (STS),and TDRSS communications satellites. These icons canbe downloaded from the WXtrack Web page:
http://www.satsignal.eu/software/wxtrack.htm

www.geo-web.org.uk

35

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

John Tellick

Lakes Bakhtegan and Tashk (together known as the Neyriz
Lakes) in the Fars Province in southern Iran are featured inthis image acquired by ALOS – Japan’s four-tonne Earthobservation satellite.
Lake Bakhtegan (centre) and Lake Tashk (top), situated in
the Neyriz Basin, are salty lakes in the south eastern Zagros
Mountains with fluctuating water levels according to rain
and snowfall in the mountains.
Lake Bakhtegan, Iran’s second largest lake, is fed mostly by
the Kur River, while Lake Tashk is fed by overflow from themarshes at its west end and by a large permanent spring in
the northwest.
Although normally separated by narrow strips of land,
during years of heavy rainfall they may join to form a single
lake. Likewise, after years of low rainfall, such as in 1934
and 1971, the lakes may dry out completely except in thearea near the springs.
Supporting more than 20000 waterfowl during the migrationseasons and in winter, the lakes are extremely important forbreeding of a wide variety of species and helping to maintainthe genetic and ecological diversity of the region.
The two lakes, their delta and spring-fed marshes aredesignated as Wetlands of International Importance by the
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The Ramsar Convention

36

on Wetlands is an inter-governmental treaty establishedin 1971, establishing a framework for the stewardshipand preservation of wetlands.
The Bakhtegan National Park, a wildlife park, sanctuary
and reserve, is visible in the top centre of the image above
Lake Bakhtegan.
ALOS (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) captured thisimage on 6 March 2009 with its Advanced Visible andNear Infrared Radiometer type-2 (AVNIR-2) instrument,
which is designed to chart land cover and vegetation invisible and near infrared spectral bands with a resolutionof 10 m.
In addition to AVNIR-2, ALOS also carries the Phased
Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR)
instrument – a microwave radar instrument that canacquire observations during both day and night andthrough any weather conditions – and the Panchromatic
Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM),
which can observe selected areas in three dimensions,
down to a 2.5-m spatial resolution.
ESA is supporting ALOS as a Third Party Mission, whichmeans ESA utilises its multi-mission European groundinfrastructure and expertise to acquire, process anddistribute data from the satellite to its wide user
community.

www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

John Tellick
On April 1 1960 NASA successfully launched
TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite)
on a Thor Able rocket at Cape Canaveral. TIROS-1
was the first in a series of early weather satellites.

objectives were to test observation
technologies, with the long-term aim ofdeveloping a global meteorological information
system.

TIROS-1 orbited some 700 km above the Earth at
an inclination of 48° to the equator, in an
approximate polar orbit. It spun at 12 revolutions
per minute, producing images of 500 lines at 500
pixels/line.

The satellite was fitted with two television
cameras (one with a wide angle lens, the othera telephoto) which captured some of the firstimages of earth from a low polar orbit (seeimage left). Both cameras were attached tomagnetic tape recorders which stored
photographs while the satellite was out ofrange of the ground station network.

TIROS-1 functioned for only three months but
returned nearly 23,000 images in that time, andwas soon followed by other satellites in the sameseries. For the first time meteorologists could
actually see the distribution of weather systems
over the surface of the Earth and no longer had torely on inferences from widely scatteredconventional observations.
At the time of launch the suitability of a satellite tomonitor weather was as yet unproven. TIROS-1’s

TIROS-1 came to a premature end when thesatellite suffered an electrical fault on June 15
1960. However, the TIROS programme went on
to launch another nine satellites and decisively
proved the usefulness of weather observationfrom space.
The USA also pioneered the first geostationary
weather satellite when it launched theexperimental ATS-I on 7 December 1966. This
combined communication / meteorologicalsatellite was also the first of a series. It
operated initially over Ecuador, but wasallowed to slowly drift westward, reaching
151°W by 1978. The satellite included two
meteorological experiments on board, providing
half-hourly full earth disc images at aresolution of 3.2 km, and also relaying weather
facsimile (WEFAX) data. Over its twelve-year
life span, ATS-I provided useful data for the
first six years, up to 1972.
Within a decade the USA had established - anddemonstrated the value of - the two classes of
meteorological satellites forming the basis of
the systems which have been in operation eversince. TIROS-1 was a forerunner of today’spolar-orbiting satellites such as the USA NOAA
series and EUMETSAT’s Metop.
Information courtesy EUMETSATTIROS 1 (Television and InfraRed Observation
Satellite), the first weather satellite, wasdesigned to test the feasibility of obtaining andusing TV cloudcover pictures from satellites.
The spin-stabilized satellite was in the form ofan 18-sided right prism, 107 cm acrossopposite corners and 56 cm high, with areinforced baseplate carrying most of the38

www.geo-web.org.uk

June 2010

Group for Earth Observation

subsystems, and a cover assembly (hat). Spacecraft
power was supplied by approximately 9000 1- by 2cm silicon solar cells mounted on the coverassembly and by 21 nickel-cadmium batteries. A
single monopole antenna for reception of groundcommands extended out from the top of the coverassembly. A pair of crossed-dipole telemetry
antennas (235 MHz) projected down and diagonallyout from the baseplate. Mounted around the edgeof the baseplate were five diametrically opposed
pairs of small, solid-fuel thrusters that maintained
the satellite spin rate between 8 and 12 rpm. The
satellite was equipped with two 1.27-cm-diameter

GEO Quarterly No 26

vidicon TV cameras, one wide angle and one
narrow angle, for taking earth cloudcover pictures.
The pictures were transmitted directly to a ground
receiving station or were stored in a tape recorderon board for later playback, depending on whether
the satellite was within or beyond thecommunication range of the station. The satellite
performed normally from launch until June 15,
1960, when an electrical power failure prevented
further useful TV transmission.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Information courtesy NOAA website.

39June 2010

Dear Sir,
I was most interested in the article
in the March issue of GEO
Quarterly 25, page 10, about theearlier days in Dundee and I canindeed answer your request at theend of that article for some
information about the first days of
APT.
As an amateur meteorologist, I firstbecame interested in the subject in1965 when working for the Civil
Aviation Authority in Stranraer. I
had already built a fax receiver with
Meccano for copying the weather
charts on HF—which at that timeused to be broadcast by all the main
weather bureaux—and when I readup the bare bones of APT I decided
this was for me. My Meccanomachine used a home made tuning
fork for its frequency standard, andproduced a chart on electro-sensitive
paper called Teledeltos, about 8
inches by 6 inches is size, but purely
in black and white. The full technicaldetails of this were published inseveral issues of Short Wave
Magazine. The rotating drum ran at
60 or 120 rpm and it seemed to me
that, with some modification, thiswould reproduce the satellite
pictures—although the shades ofgrey might not be true to life.
Running at 120 rpm I would get ahalf-size picture, but that was OK, at
any rate to start with.
Getting going was not as easy as I
had hoped. The fundamental detailsof APT took some finding as there
was little in the press about it andan enquiry to Wireless World
magazine only suggested that I leave
the subject safely alone in case I got
arrested! By managing to get someAmerican publications, I finallyfound out that the frequency wasaround 137 MHz and so a receiver
was built up, using valves of course.
It was necessary to use a steerable
aerial with a fair amount of gain, or
so one was led to believe, so an eightturn helix was constructed.
Movement in elevation and azimuth
was steered with ropes driven by old
car starter motors and controlled byswitches and relays from indoors.
After about six months of hardlabour the first pictures werereceived—the very first was from oneof the ESSA satellites (I think it was
No 6 or No 8), and it was possible toGroup for Earth Observation

make out the Norwegian peninsulaquite clearly as it was covered insnow. These first attempts were
‘negatives’ because I simply appliedthe 2400 Hz tone to the writing
stylus; so the stronger signal marked
as black. No matter, here was thefirst picture from space.
Numerous improvements andmodifications were made over the
next year, which took time, because
there was only one pass I could
receive every 24 hours from one
satellite. At that time the pictures
were transmitted as individual
frames, like a fax, and it was with
the Nimbus series that the firstcontinuous scanning was started.
The simple system I was using
finally produced very creditable
results and came to the notice ofNASA and the General ElectricCompany in the USA, who were themakers of the Nimbus spacecraft—
and this resulted in their very
generously giving my wife and myself
a two week tour of the American
Space Programme in May 1968.
Details appeared in CQ Magazine in
1969.
The publicity in the United Statesand here (short TV programs weremade by BBC and ITV) resulted in
the very kind offer of an old
Muirhead photo facsimile recording
machine from a newspaper office inCarlisle. After this length of time, I
cannot remember their nameunfortunately. This machine,
commonly known as The Fish Fryer
because of its size and appearance,
enabled me, after considerable
modification, to produce really highgrade pictures on photo printing
paper. I took one of these in to the
London Met. Office, probably in
1969, and when I showed it to one of
the forecasters his comment was:‘Where the h*** did you get that?’
When I said I received it at home hetook me in, introduced me to various
other forecasters, and gave me a cupof tea!
In 1970, following promotion in myjob, I was posted from Stranraer to
CAA’s head office in Edinburgh. As I
had discovered by this time that the
8-turn helix could be replaced byrather simpler arrays of crossed
dipoles, I gave my helix to theDundee University, who had visitedme many times previously fordemonstrations of a working system.

www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 26

I am pretty sure the helix shown in
the picture accompanying the article
about Dundee University is my oldone; if not, it is a Chinese copy, but
the mounting and the drive will havebeen upgraded considerably!!
In 1976 I gave up APT for a numberof years and it was not until the mid
nineties that I restarted with acomputer. There was then a lapse
between 2000 and the present day,when I have just taken it up again. It
was, of course ‘more fun’ in the
beginning—most things are. There
were many many hours of trial anderror. As far as I know, I was thefirst to copy APT in the UK andcertainly the night time pictures with
the IR transmissions. The earliest
ones used a different line speed,some very strange figure which I
can’t remember now but whichmeant I had to construct a special
standard frequency generator; but by
this time I was using crystals anddividers, though the fork went on formany years with the original
Meccano machine which I still used
for the fax charts.
I also remember that, at that time,
there was one geostationary satellite
transmitting on 137 MHz, though its
name eludes me. I did copy somepictures of the complete hemispherefrom it, and in spite of being a bit
noisy they were interesting and goodgoing for that era.
Like many elderly folk, I don’t findusing a computer the easiest thing
in the world, but there are so manythings you can do with the pictures
these days that it is worthwhilepersevering. Much more sensitive
receivers means aerials can be quite
simple, and quite reasonable results
can be achieved even indoors. So I
hope to go on doing APT for a whileyet.
Yours sincerely
John B Tuke GM3BST
EditorThankyou John for your very
interesting letter and article, from all
at GEO we wish you a very happy
90th birthday.

More letters page 44

41

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

June 2010

Douglas Deans - dsdeans@btinternet.com
I did say a number of columns agothat with the pre and post launch
excitement of Windows 7 now over, I
would try and use more of the column
space for topics directly related to ourhobby interests. I know that many of
our group are now registered for
Eumetcast and enjoying the gigabytesof high quality digital data not only
from Europe but indeed from all over
the world. An example of this is theglobal 6 channel 1km HRPT data from
Metop …… simply outstanding.
However with all this image andmeteorological data comes other issues
such as keeping up with just what
data is available and what eachchannel is now carrying. There is a
wealth of knowledge available from
Eumetsat’s Product Navigator but thevery comprehensive search facility does
not allow you to search on a perchannel basis, something that would
be very useful to our hobby. It is more
related to products and sub-sets ofproducts. With this in mind andsome feedback from a few members I
have decided that it might beworthwhile to provide information onwhat data, files etc., are sent on eachof the Eumetcast channels. This is
obviously a huge undertaking as there
are now more than 40 channels on thesystem, some carrying both highvolumes of data and a heady mix ofdata and file types. What I hope to do,time allowing, is to look at a channel
or perhaps a group of channels in eachof my columns. Members can keep anote of the information and build up acomprehensive package of the full
Eumetcast system, channel bychannel. Of course with only 4
journals per year this may take a little
time but I do hope it will prove to be
useful. Again I welcome any
comments on this. It is your magazine
and it really is up to the membershipto provide feedback so that
contributors can adapt to what the
majority want. I had considered doinga separate series of articles on this but
the Editor of the magazine has allowed
me extra column space as needed toinclude this additional work.
Can I just point out to readers that
this is not a tutorial on how to set up a
Eumetcast system, or an explanationof the data itself. Those facts are42

covered in many other articles inthis and previous GEO journals
and I can also recommend David
Taylor’s web site for a huge range
of useful information and FAQs on
setting up a Eumetcast systemand how to troubleshoot problems.
I strongly recommend you checkthis out. David’s web site isaccessed at :http://www.satsignal.eu

This will be a simple factual
account of the data type and filetypes sent on specific channels,
information not readily available
elsewhere. As I said before I hopereaders will build this up to a
useful reference as indeed I am
now doing !
Where more appropriate to start
this quarter than Channel 1 or
[EUMETSAT Data Channel 1] as itshould appear in your recvchannels.ini file.
As usual in my column there isinformation on program updates
and I have some brief information
on a new program from the pen ofDavid Taylor, our personal weather
satellite computer programmer.
Eumetcast Data channel 1.
In many ways Channel 1 is quite
straight forward in that it carries
the EARS system (Eumetsat
Advanced Retransmission Service)and nothing else. Not too manychannels have this privilegedarrangement. Perhaps in thisinstance a quick description of the
EARS service and its objectives will
help you better understand the filetypes. Put simply the aim of theservice is to provide polar satellite
data from the Eumetsat satellite
Metop and the NOAA satellites
with a timeliness suited to theneeds of European operational
short range regional numerical
weather prediction models.
EARS comprises three separate
polar satellite instrument dataservices. These are the existing
EARS-ATOVS and the EARSAVHRR and the pilot EARSASCAT. Each of the EARS services

www.geo-web.org.uk

retransmits observations from an
instrument or an instrument group
and aims at providing a homogeneous
service across the NOAA and Metoppolar orbiting satellite platforms.
Traditionally polar satellite data fromthe NOAA satellites has been received
via two methods.
The once per orbit data download fromthe spacecraft to the central NOAA
ground station and the directtransmission from the satellite to a
High Resolution Picture Transmission(HRPT) station on ground.
The first mechanism provides global
coverage data to end-users, but withdelays of three to six hours after thetime of measurement. The second
mechanism provides the data virtuallyat the time of measurement, but thegeographical coverage is limited to theregion around the HRPT reception
station. EARS provides improvements
on both of these methods by offering alarge geographical coverage combinedwith timely retransmission. This isachieved by establishing a network ofexisting HRPT stations around theAtlantic and Arctic Oceans and rapid
distribution of the collected instrument
data to end-users.
The network of HRPT/AHRPT stationsacquires and processes the Metop and
NOAA satellite HRPT/AHRPT telemetry
data and forwards the generated
meteorological products to Eumetsat.
These products are then disseminatedto the users via Eumetcast and the
RMDCN/GTS.
Problems with the direct readout
AHRPT service from Metop haveresulted in a reduced EARS service but
this issue has now been resolved.
There is now partial use of the AHRPT
direct readout service on south boundpasses and to cover for the missing
readout on North bound passes
Eumetsat have set up a Fast Dump
service. A description of this follows
but first an explanation of what caused
the problems with the AHRPT direct
readout system. For those who may beconsidering future AHRPT stations
please note that this problem will becorrected for the launch of the next

June 2010

Group for Earth Observation

two Metop satellites.
Investigations into the failure of the Metop-A AHRPT side
A concluded that the root cause was heavy ion radiation
causing the failure of a component of the AHRPT Solid
State Power Amplifier (SSPA). To minimise the risk offailure of the Metop-A AHRPT-B unit whilst still offering
the User community a service, Eumetsat has
implemented a partial AHRPT service in those areas
where the risk of damage from heavy ion radiation is
reduced. For southbound passes, AHRPT side B is
activated for all orbits over the North Atlantic andEuropean area starting at around 60°N. The AHRPT isthen switched-off before the spacecraft reaches theSouthern Atlantic Anomaly region, at around 10°N. The
switch-on of the AHRPT service for the descending passes
over Europe and North Atlantic region, will allow ASCAT,ATOVS and AVHRR data to be available from the EARS
network of stations.
To complement the partial Metop-A AHRPT-B service, aFast Dump Extract service (FDES) is being implemented.
This service utilises the most recent part of the X-band
global dump received at Svalbard from the northboundpasses. The ASCAT, ATOVS and AVHRR data streams
can thus be provided with high timeliness for regional
data. At present ASCAT and ATOVS services are being
provided with the AVHRR FDES to follow on.
For those interested there is a wealth of knowledge
available about the EARS system with considerable
information about the incorporated stations, at the
Eumetsat web site. Please go to the following address formore information on the EARS system :http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/What_We_Do/Satellites/EAR
S_System

Now let us consider what is sent on Channel 1.
Below is a comprehensive list of the file names and types
you will find being sent on Channel 1. Obviously there
will be a range of mixes of satellites and stations but thelist contains all the data file types you can find on thechannel. For clarity I have split the files under the three
EARS headings I referred to earlier in the column.
EARS-ATOVS file examples :amsua_20100403_0743_metopa_17924_sva.l1c_bufr
amsua_20100119_2107_noaa19_04900_edm.l1a.bz2
amsua_20100119_2113_noaa19_04899_gil.l1b.bz2
amsua_20100119_2107_noaa19_04900_edm.l1c.bufr
amsub_20100120_1131_noaa17_39368_mas.l1c.bufr
amsub_20100120_1150_noaa15_60772_edm.l1a.bz2
amsub_20100120_1312_noaa17_39369_wal.l1b.bz2
hirs_20100119_2043_noaa18_24052_sva.l1d.bz2
hirs_20100119_2107_noaa19_04900_edm.l1a.bz2
hirs_20100119_2107_noaa19_04900_edm.l1c_bufr
hirs_20100119_2113_noaa19_04899_gil.l1b.bz2

GEO Quarterly No 26

2_bufrscatt_20100120_200939_er2__0000_ear_o_250_ovw_l2_b
ufr
I have included a composite image showing an example ofeach of the three data types sent on Channel 1. You can
see this on the inside back cover.
MODIS L1 and Fire Viewer.
For many months new MODIS Aqua radiance data from
Eumetcast has been on test and in preparation for the
release of the data to all registered users, David Taylor
has written a program to view the new files. As I write
this column and after many months of testing, the data
has now been made available to all who wish to receive it.
Simply contact OPS and register for the data. As well as
the radiance (image) data, Geolocation data has also been
provided although David’s program does not need it.
So once again David has made a viewing programavailable from day one of the new data. … no mean feat.
The datas are aggregated to 1km resolution and are both
spatially thinned by only retaining those values north of
25 North between 60 West and 45 East and north of 65
North elsewhere and spectrally thinned by only retaining
values from channels 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20, 23,
26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32 and 33. The files are in HDF4
format and are sent on Eumetsat Data Channel 4.
Files are sent in 5 minute data blocks and the areas they
cover are shown on the program’s browser tab. To view
simply click on the sector and the relevant image willopen. As well as viewing the images in their 18 available
wavelength tabs, there are a number of additional options
including false colour splitting further into RGB,
Vegetation, Air Mass and Ash. For those familiar with
the GeoSatSignal remapping facility there is a similar tool
provided with the viewer including some pre-definedareas. Many other useful features, too numerous tomention in this brief introduction, have been provided. A
note of caution for Eumetcast users. Many of the MODIS
image files are large, often in excess of 80 MB, so
RAMdisk sizes should be increased accordingly. For
those taking Meteosat, Metop and some EARS products, I
would now recommend an absolute minimum of 250 MB.
In addition the program also provides an option to view
possible fire locations from MODIS fire data sent on
Eumetsat Data Channel 12. You can select one of thefiles and if there are either possible or probable fires
those are shown on a world map or a zoomed in location
which can be chosen by a simple right click on thescreen.
Possibly the best initial option is to select the auto facility
as some files can include very few or no pixels.
David Taylor’s programs (latest releases).

EARS-AVHRR file examples :-Just a reminder that the list below is for fully tested
releases and does not include the latest beta (or alpha)versions currently on test. Those can also be downloaded
from David’s site. I have included the new MODIS L1
and Fire Viewer (reviewed above) although there is not a
fully tested release yet available.

avhrr_20100119_194600_noaa19.hrp.bz2
AVHR_HRP_00_M02_20100403081600Z_2010040308170
0Z_N_O_20100403082024Z.bz2

To learn more about those programs and to download thelatest updates please go to :-mhs_20100119_1926_noaa19_04899_edm.l1a.bz2
mhs_20100119_1938_noaa19_04899_sva.l1c.bufr
mhs_20100119_2027_noaa18_24051_mon.l1b.bz2

EARS-ASCAT file examples :ascat_20100119_195800_metopa_16879_ear_o_125_ovw.l
2_bufrascat_20100119_195800_metopa_16879_ear_o_250_ovw.l

http://www.satsignal.eu(continued on page 44)

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43

GEO Quarterly No 26

Group for Earth Observation

David Taylor’s programs (latest
releases) continued from page 43

same. Your 'shack' with all its
equipment is very impressive (nowthis is a ‘real’ shack) not tomention the APT images you
display on your web site.

Kind regards

Dear Peter

Colin

Just a short note to congratulate
you on another excellent
magazine. I can assure you thatpage 35 being inserted as a loose
page in no way detracts from theenjoyment of reading themagazine. Many thanks for all thehard work from you and the team.

v 1.2.0

AVHRR Manager

v 2.0.2

BUFR Viewer

v 1.1.4

CMA Viewer

v 1.2.0

DWDSAT HRPT Viewer

v 1.1.2

GeoSatSignal

v 7.1.4

GRIB Viewer

v 2.3.6

Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter
Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom

GroundMap

v 2.0.6

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

HDF Viewer

v 1.4.4

HRPT Reader

v 2.9.4

Kepler Manager

v 1.3.2

MapToGeov 1.1.6

Metop Manager

v 1.4.4

MSG Animatorv 2.5.32

MSG Data Manager

v 2.5.38

Editor
I expect many GEO members willremember Colin Cuthbert from theearly days of the EUMETCast
service when receiving stations
had to register with their national
meteorological office. Colin looked
after the UK licenses for several
years until the registration system
was streamlined using
EUMETSAT's web site. We wish
Colin well in his retirement.

PassControl

v 3.2.4

SatSignal

v 5.2.2

Sea-Ice & Viewer

v 1.4 .2

Wxtrackv 3.4.8

MODIS L1 and Fire Viewer

v 1.02

Dear Francis,
I can't remember if I've mentioned
this to you before, but I will beretiring from the Met Office at theend of July this year.
I have very much appreciatedreceiving your regular GEO
Quarterly publication - as theimages are distinctly different to
the operational ones we see here! I
put your Quarterly out for generaluse after I've read it.
However, I thought I had better let
you know that you could savesending me a copy, but if you wish
you could send one to the
National Met Library here directly
for their interest and Libraryusers, which include the generalpublic as you know. If you would
like to carry on sending themagazine, please let me know andI will let them know to expect itfrom the next quarter issue.
The address is the same as below

44- you just need to address it to
National Meteorological Libraryinstead of my name.I wish you
and all GEO members the best for
the future - I'm sure EUMETSAT
will continue to look after you
well!

ATOVS Reader

Letters continued from page 41

June 2010

Colin Cuthbert Data Manager

Hi Francis,
A short message from Haarlem,
Holland.
I have now started an automaticweatherpage (WxtoImg) on my sitewhich I run when I am at home!
From the beginning I have liked
APT and experimented to get thebest results possible. I use my
R2FX receiver now and mycollapsible PITA137 antenna
without a pre-amplifier. The
PITA137 location is "under theroof". See the pictures on myweatherpage.
As you can see I receive images
from Nova Zembla_Caspian Sea inthe east to the Canary Islands,
Azores, Canada and Greenland in
the west.
I have added some images to showwhat is possible with simple
equipment.
Regards,
Rudd - PA0ROJ
N.B The direct way to myweatherpage is:
http://www.jendela.nl/web/weather.htm
lEditorThank you for your email Rudd. I
have looked at your web site andrecommend that others do thewww.geo-web.org.uk

Sincerely
Paul J Letters
Carrickfergus
Co Antrim

Dear Francis,
Thank you for the 'MSG In Orbit
In Use' publication, it is very
interesting, informative and ofhigh quality. Thanks also fortaking the time to answer myquestions regarding MSG
reception and including the CDs.
My Skycard II is set up to receive
the data streams from 9 Deg. east
ENVISAT and 10 Deg. east
EUMETCast: the signal andquality levels on both satellites arehigh. I have also read about the
Rob Alblas software which gives
control over the Tellique software,with the occasional user in mind:
ideal for my intended purpose.
I do not have Internet access or an
Email address but I did get on the
web recently whilst on holiday in
Gibraltar. Attempting to download
the Tellique software without
registering proved impossible.
GOES-P was launched from Cape
Canaveral on a Delta IV rocket on
Thursday night 4th March 2010. I
followed the proceedings on 10
Deg. East W1 10970 vertical 4167
5/6: this is the UP feed andcarries NASA TV at times ofactivity. The recent STS 130
mission was shown as was the LCross mission.
Thank you for your recent letterand the time and effort you all put
into GEO. It is appreciated.
Regards
Kevin Hewitt
ChathamKent