1

ELEN4001 Project: Weather Satellite Image

Receiving Station
Sean S Muzoka, (307342),
School of Electrical and Information Engineering
University of the Witwatersrand,
20/05/2013

AbstractAn antenna for receiving weather satellite

images (Automatic Picture Transmissions) from the United
States National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration is designed. The double cross dipole antenna was
chosen for this project. This decision was based on its
construction simplicity and the hemispherical radiation
pattern. The signals are transmitted at 137MHz and this
determines the dimensions of the antenna. The dipoles are
1m long and 0.54m apart. PVC pipes are used to hold
the structure together and the dipoles are made of 0.1m
diameter copper tubing. Matching phasing and matching
was performed using RG58 50 coaxial cable. The method
for demodulating and decoding the signal is described in
the report.

the data is amplitude modulated on a 2.4kHz signal.

The signal can be received twice a day [3] from one
position. The signal is frequency demodulated by
the receiver and sent through a decoding algorithm
using software packages (discussed in Section III).
An overview of this process is shown in Fig. 1.
This project is deemed a success if the physical
antenna receives the APT signals and the pictures
are decoded. To obtain high quality images some
conditions have to be met by the antenna, these are
discussed below.

KeywordsDouble cross dipole antenna, SuperNEC,

NOAA, Matching

I. I NTRODUCTION
EATHER forecasting is an important variable in aviation, freight, tourism and general
human safety [1]. Predictions can be done using
pictures captured by the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
satelites [2] using Automatic Picture Transmission
(APT) signals. This report details the design and
construction of an appropriate antenna for receiving
signals from the NOAA satellites. The SuperNEC
package is used to design the antenna in Section
III. Matching, phasing and image processing are
also discussed in Section III. Testing and analysis
is discussed in Section IV. Finally an environmental
and social assessment is done in section V.

II. BACKGROUND
NOAA satellites are polar orbiting therefore they
can surface at all azimuth and rise at an elevation
from any location on the globe [3]. The satellites
transmit circular polarised APT signals, they are
frequency modulated on a 137MHz [2] carrier and

Fig. 1.

System block diagram

A. Constraints

The antenna will be fixed in to one position

therefore it should have a hemispherical radiation pattern so as to be equally sensitive
in all directions. It should have a maximum
towards the azimuthal directions and not have
deep nulls in the radiation hemisphere [2].
The antenna should be insensitive to reflections i.e. a Right Hand Circular Polarised
(RHCP) radiation pattern
The APT signals are received at 137MHz. A
wide bandwidth is required since it ensures
that the high frequency components of the

signal are not lost henceforth maintaining high

signal quality.
The total time to design build and test should
not be longer than 50 hours and the total cost
of the project should be minimal.
Physical attributes such as robustness and low
weight are of little importance since carrying
out repairs is a minor affair
B. Existing solutions
There are a couple of antenna designs in existence
being used for NOAA satelite APT signal reception.
The designs of interest in this project are crossed
dipole [4], double crossed dipole [3] and the quadrifilar helix [2]. The quadrifilar helix consists of four
helical conductors excited in phase quadrature [5].
It is compact and ground plane to suppress the back
radiation is not required. The crossed dipole consists
of two half wavelength long dipoles fed at 90o out
of phase [4]. The double crossed dipole is made
up of two crossed dipoles placed perpendicular to
each other, the two pairs are fed 90o out of phase.
The crossed dipole and the double crossed dipole
are relatively simpler to build than the quadrifillar
helix and they also have relatively higher bandwidth.
However the crossed dipole and the double crossed
dipole are less efficient compared to the quadrifillar
helix [1], [2], [3]. Although the crossed dipole is
easier to build than the double crossed dipole, the
radiation patterns produced in simulation Fig. 2
show that the double crossed dipole radiation pattern
approximates the desired hemispherical shape better.
From Fig. 2 it can be seen that there is a null in the
zenith. This null should have at most a drop of 12dB
as the transmitter will have a gain 12dB stronger in
its nadir compared to when it is in the azimuth of
the receiver [3].
The double crossed dipole Antenna (DCDA) was
chosen over the quadrifilar helix for this project
because of its higher bandwidth, excellent RHCP
in the azimuth and simpler construction. It also has
a less complicated feeding mechanism compared to
quadrifilar helix.
III. D ESIGN I MPLEMENTATION
A. Antenna structure
The DCDA consists of four half wavelength
dipoles made from copper tubing. Each dipole is
spaced by quarter wavelength from its perpendicular

opposite counterpart. The dipoles are set at 30o

from the vertical and the two horizontal handles are
perpendicular. An illustration is shown in Fig. 3.
The operating frequency is 137MHz and this gives

Fig. 3.

Double crossed dipole antenna configuration

a wavelength of 2.19m. This in turn determines

the dimensions of the antenna i.e. dipole length

= 1m; the distance between opposite dipoles

2

= 0.5m; a conductor diameter of 20

= m.
4
Copper tubing is used as the conductor. It is chosen
for its very high conductivity to minimise ohmic
loss,Rohmic = 0.024 from 1 where the variables are
operating frequency (f ): 137M Hz, Conductivity of
copper (c ): 5.7 107 mhos/m and Permeability of
copper (c ) it was considered negligible.
s

Rohmic =

2f c
1

2c
6a

(1)

The diameter used for the copper d = 1mm is

175 times bigger than the skin depth = 0.0057.
The pattern shown in Fig. 2(b) is flawed in that
it provides good reception in the zenith direction.
The satellite only spends a few minutes in this
range hence it is necessary to flip the antenna
radiation pattern so as to get more coverage in
the azimuth. The desired pattern can be achieved
by physically reorienting the DCDA. The radiation
pattern is shown in Fig. 4.
B. Simulation results
SuperNEC is the simulation package of choice
used for this project. The model frequency was

Fig. 2.

Radiation patterns for (a)crossed dipole, (b)double crossed dipole, (c) quadrifilar helix

impedance of 50 and therefore matching the RG50

cable used as a transmission line.
The phasing was done by using the quarter wavelength longer cables on dipoles 3 and 4 as mentioned
before. using a velocity factor of 0.66.

Fig. 4.
Double crossed dipole antenna with desirable radiation
pattern orientation

set to 137MHz and a frequency sweep was done

from 136MHz to 138MHz. The VSWR falls in
the preferred range, i.e. 1:1.266 at 137MHz. After
some adjustments to the orientation of the DCDA
it was seen that the gin increases slightly when all
the dipoles are raised/offset by 0.2cm towards the
zenith. Fig. 4 shows this pattern.
C. Matching and phasing
Spacing opposite pairs a quarter wavelength apart
and feeding the perpendicular pairs 90o out of phase
ensures RHCP. Therefore the polarisation losses
were considered to be minimal. The simulations
produced a radiation impedance of 67.8 + 71.1j for
each dipole. Matching was done using a 0.12m short
circuit stub on each of the dipoles 1 and 2, they
were connected in series and dipoles 3 and 4 are
also connected in series with coax lines a quarter
wavelength longer than the ones used in 1 and 2 i.e.
0.37m. This is depicted in Fig. 5. The series pairs
then give an impedance of 100 each. The two pairs
are then connected in parallel and have a combined

Fig. 5.

Double crossed dipole antenna configuration

D. Image decoding and display

Signals from the NOAA weather satelite are
analogue [6]. They are amplitude modulated on a
2.4kHz carrier and then frequency modulated on a
137MHz carrier wave. The receiver should have a
40kHz bandwidth as this is the radio signal bandwidth. The sound card of a PC can be used for
decoding, that is analogue to digital conversion of
the audio output fron the receiver. The signal is then
converted to pictures using APT Decoder software
[8]
IV. T ESTING AND A NALYSIS
A 137MHz radio could not be attained due to
budgetary limits. However the structure was built
Fig. 6.

Fig. 6.

Double crossed dipole antenna

V. E NVIRONMENTAL AND S OCIAL I MPACT

This antenna is built with the paramount intention
for testing its functionality hence it does not have
the safety features required. These include but are
not limited to lightning protection and grounding [9]
VI. C ONCLUSION
This report presents the design and simulation
of the double crossed dipole antenna. A detailed
description of the construction and reasons for the
choices made is discussed. The methods for decoding and displaying the image are outlined. The
antenna is expected to work as demonstrated in
simulation. However the antenna was not tested
because of the unavailability of a receiving radio.
R EFERENCES
[1]

A. Klein, S. Kavoussi, D. Hickman, D. Simenaurer, M. Phaneuf and T. MacPhail ,Using a Convective Weather Forecast
Product to Predict Weather Impact on Air Traffc: Methodology
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Navigation and Surveillance Conference, 2007.ICNS, 07.
[2] R.W. Hollander Resonant Quadriflar Helix Antenna, Technote
1999-1, Working group satellites, www.kunstmanen.net, Last
accessed 8 April 2013

[3]
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[9]

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