I recently found your channel and I think you are doing a great job. Im actually learning from you. I love your videos because you do alot of DIY solutions. Some of which I am trying myself. Go on and dont let them people take you down. Greetings from germany.
Thanks for making these videos and teaching us. I learned quite a bit. Your approach to figure out how to build this stuff cheaply or by hand is a great way to explain and make it approachable by a lot of folks. It's easy to understand your English, I've spoken to non-native English speakers around the world. You are in the top 25% of the folks I talked to at work throughout my career. Yes you have an accent, but every English speaker does, including me who only knows English.
Perfect timing, was having insomnia and this video came to save the boredom caused from it. You have a talent for breaking down and simplifying concepts that I often fear, such as antenna design and building. (Hopefully I'll get that Yagi antenna built, though I've never really held a drill more than 5 times in my life so this will have interesting results!) Thank you for rejuvenating my passion for satellites and amateur radio, but also curse you as I must once again question my career path
I think if you were to start videos covering basics of this hobby, radio theory/broadcasting/receiving you could have a very strong following on youtube. You could even sell courses if you wanted to. Anytime you do stuff related to this just film it as you're doing and this is easily one of the better channels I've seen. The candid narration of what you're doing is very cool.
Dude... You are doing a perfect job. One evening with your videos and I'm going deep into this rabbit hole with blush on my face. Thank you! Btw you mention budget limitations from time to time. Is there a way we could support you? Some patreon-like stuff? I would pay for the knowledge you share for free, to be honest...
I am going to be strait up dude. Your shiz is awesome.. Strait binge-watched your entire channel and was like where have you been my whole youtube life! Funny thing, and true story; I had ordered a RTL-SDR before I found your videos. I have been in the RF/IT industry for a minute and have wanted to buy one for a fat while. I was so mad I didn't buy a HackRF the instant after 😅😅. Your videos are Hands Down outstanding and you are adding some serious knowledge out there; f-ing love to see it! Pumps me up! Dont be sorry about your language! Never be! I know you are new to this but some people are further than knowledge can take them.. But I digress, my spelling sucks and I know but talk to me about this stuff and would blow socks off Haha! Please keep up the great videos!!!!!!!
I’ve only recently found your channel. Very informative. I’m just getting into the hobby and your channel has videos on everything I’ve been trying to learn.
I babysit every VHF pass I do with a rotatable setup much like your dish setup for HRPT. It's a fiberglass pole on a ground stake, a coax up the middle to a LNA/BPF, and then the Vs are telescopic elements that rotate and fold down. A reflector completes the build and I attach to my RSP1A which has enough bias T current to run the LNA. The best thing is that the pole is also telescoping, so after finding the signal at low elevations I just pop up the pole to 2 metres or so, wait until the elevation gets high enough, then lower it back down so the overhead part of the pass is decent. For automated systems this isn't helpful, of course.
I've used coated wire shelving for wifi antennas before. I wonder if it would work for 2.2G as well? It's cheap, and can be cut to any length. So you can make a good size antenna from it, with panels of the shelving and zipties or 3d printed holders. Just an idea. It would be a lot lighter and easier to transport that a regulars satellite dish. I think it's nooelec that sells a premade dish that looks very similar- but is $200. Maybe use two panels that let you basically fold the 'dish' in half for transport. Or different configs with 3 or 4 panels to assemble an even larger dish.. Totally digging your videos. You come across as real down to earth, and your videos feel like it's just some guys hanging out while you explain things in easy to understand terms and build cool/fun stuff.
Really love these videos. Super interesting. I'm going to try and decode some images myself someday, and these videos are great guides. Keep up the good work man.
I love every bit of it!!! I’m the same way trying to explain things, if anything you might have inspired me to maybe attempt to start my own CZcams channel!!!
your English is very good, I mean everything you say is clearly understood, and I am a non usa born American, my first language is spanish, and my inglish is good but not perfect. considering how much money you can spend, you are doing very well, very resourceful and practical. my hats if off to you (americana).
Well this is a different upload! I've really enjoyed your channel, and it's finally spurred me to make the leap from 137 MHz to 1.7 GHz! I am working on a helix now, got your template all printed and just need the other bits...
Just reporting in (although have mentioned it on other videos) to say that this jump is complete and I'm receiving images on L-band now. It was a fun project and I'm enjoying tweaking it for max signal.
34:42 Thanks for the answer, I am currently using gps lna for hrpt. I advise you to try it too, such an amplifier works much better than spf. You can buy a GPS antenna for $5 and use an amplifier from there. Also about the feng yun 2H satellite, I do not know if it is working now, when I tried to receive ELECTRO 3, transmissions from the FY 2H went over it. It didn't work out to decode any of this.
Elektro L3 isn't usually bothered by FY-2H, but there are many times where FY-2H doesn't transmit at the same time as L3. In any case FY-2H doesn't transmit anything on LRIT, only on SVISSR (requires a much larger dish).
Your english is really good (better that mine). Thank you for answering my questions. I know now that my life meaning is compleated. Question: is there a diffrence using copper and aluminum for antenna? Wwhai if you use your dish for astroradiology? Point it at sun and you get higher "noise floor". Pointing it at moon ao even at jupiter?
Electrically there is no difference to use copper or aluminium for an antenna. Copper will "survive" for longer outside but is heavy. Aluminium is cheaper and much lighter those two factors is a trade off and usually aluminium will survive at least 10 years so it is used widely .
i renember back in the day i used my PDA for sattelite navigation, as before smartphones were a thing the satnav and PDA kinda merged for that market and yea it had no issue picking up the sattelites it needed while my nokia 3200 (modern during that time) got no signal whatsoever i think some sattelite phones exist (they did back then and were extremely expensive to call on) but navigation and cell signal are not related whatsoever* some commenters are wierd *actually i think some phones can triagulate a rough position via cell towers and use that to aid navigation, but its just to get a rough idea where you are and not accurate enough standalone for navigation
Seeing as you're in Czechia, the elevation angle of QO-100 is somewhere between 30 and 33 degrees. The offset angle on that 1.8M dish is 22.3 degrees, so you're still in positive elevation angle territory and there's no real need to flip the dish upside down. The stock mount for the Prodelin dish provides elevation adjustment to have the back of the dish pointing down as it is. There's really no need to have the feed flipped upside down making it way harder on yourself to make adjustments unless you're looking for things probably below 5 or 10 degrees elevation. I built my own polar mount for mine, so I can get down close to 5 degrees with it in the normal orientation, but that's not with the stock mount. Also, 1.8M dishes are getting harder and harder to find in the US too - lots of them have been out of service for years now, and the roofs they're sitting on are getting re-roofed, and the dishes end up in the landfill. I have a small collection of those dishes, but I knew about probably twice as many of them that I managed to get that I was interested in tat are now in a landfill somewhere.
You could branch out into terrestrial SDR and/or amateur radio. Alternatively you could go deeper into satellite telemetry or radio astronomy. Listen only EME? Or bite the bullet and buy a power amp for 2.4GHz for EME and QO-100.
Your English is totally clear and understandable. I can tell you are not a native speaker but I have not yet been confused about your meaning. The people correcting you probably only speak one language. Don't let them make you feel bad. Pronunciation comes with time and honestly doesn't matter anyway.
How about some videos where you build things and viewers can try it at home. Can you make a satellite dish from cardboard and aluminum foil? Can you solder your own LNA? How about testing a cheap LNA ( I just bought a couple of the cheap ones you showed) vs a legit RTL SDR version? Maybe a cheap 3 element yagi? ?
Couple questions. If I run the same wave file from a satellite through different decoding software, do I get different images or will the all be exactly the same? Will satdump give me better images than a simple, basic program will? I want to improve the images I'm getting, so I'm thinking about trying other locations to try. What are some tip for picking a location? For instance, I have a big parking lot that's 5 minutes away but still in suburban neighborhoods, and I have a hilltop that I can get to that's about 45 minutes away and more isolated and quiet. Is it worth driving out of town, or should I stick close and use a bigger antenna?
The answer is; sometimes. WxToImg used to break/desync for me on images that NOAA-APT would read absolutely fine and fix any desyncs But WxtoImg seemed to produce nicer decodes for me, and the enhancements are better. Luckily SatDump is now up to the same standard WxToImg was, and so I've finally moved across to it full time for VHF reception.
If you're open to requests; i know you have that parameter driven CAD file for generating helical antennas. I downloaded it, and have looked at it a bit. I know very little about this yet though, and am not sure what all should be changed. Can you do a short explanation on what parameters to change (and what to definitely not mess with)?
THANK YOU SO MUCH! you took so much time to answer my questions, and gave some awesome advice with the v dipole, i thought the null bands were from my janky antenna, but now it sounds like i will have to find a hill to lay the antenna lower down on. I've actually listened to the UHF SATCOM pirates, so it sounds like it's time to invest in some hrpt equipment! thank you again, and have a great day!
Regarding ELEKTRO, you don't know how to improve the signal quality, I have a dish with a diameter of 1 meter, a good amplifier, but without a filter. The satellite is located at an altitude of almost 20 degrees, but the LRIT signal level is no more than 2-3 db, about 4-5 db is needed for decoding. how can I still amplify the signal? I have already installed 2 amplifiers, but such a setup simply ruined the entire signal and overloaded the receiver.
The filter could help, also take a look at the feed of your dish, that's where the most dB are usually lost or gained. You want to make sure it's LHCP, all connections are solid, and that its beam width is matched to your dish
@@dereksgc Are you sure L3 is LHCP? I've been getting it fine on RHCP, from Italy. 9° elevation, 100cm dish, 6dB SNR with Satdump. (Or are you talking about the feed being inverted because of the dish?) Setup is a G4DDK LNA, Sysmocom filter and Analog Devices PlutoSDR.
Your English is very impressive. I'm always amazed by bilingual speakers--especially speaking on technical topics. Keep up the great work!
Just recently found your channel. I wanted to say thanks for all of the great content. I'm quite keen to try some satellite reception myself.
I recently found your channel and I think you are doing a great job. Im actually learning from you. I love your videos because you do alot of DIY solutions. Some of which I am trying myself.
Go on and dont let them people take you down. Greetings from germany.
Just came to say that I love 3310. That is all. Na shledanou. Warmest regards from LOWL
Thanks for making these videos and teaching us. I learned quite a bit. Your approach to figure out how to build this stuff cheaply or by hand is a great way to explain and make it approachable by a lot of folks. It's easy to understand your English, I've spoken to non-native English speakers around the world. You are in the top 25% of the folks I talked to at work throughout my career. Yes you have an accent, but every English speaker does, including me who only knows English.
Perfect timing, was having insomnia and this video came to save the boredom caused from it. You have a talent for breaking down and simplifying concepts that I often fear, such as antenna design and building. (Hopefully I'll get that Yagi antenna built, though I've never really held a drill more than 5 times in my life so this will have interesting results!)
Thank you for rejuvenating my passion for satellites and amateur radio, but also curse you as I must once again question my career path
I think if you were to start videos covering basics of this hobby, radio theory/broadcasting/receiving you could have a very strong following on youtube. You could even sell courses if you wanted to. Anytime you do stuff related to this just film it as you're doing and this is easily one of the better channels I've seen. The candid narration of what you're doing is very cool.
we really appreciate your content, thanks man and your pronunciation is amazing, wishing you the best from eastern USA
Dude... You are doing a perfect job. One evening with your videos and I'm going deep into this rabbit hole with blush on my face. Thank you!
Btw you mention budget limitations from time to time. Is there a way we could support you? Some patreon-like stuff? I would pay for the knowledge you share for free, to be honest...
Your English is solid and completely understandable. Don't worry about your English, you're doing great!
I am going to be strait up dude. Your shiz is awesome.. Strait binge-watched your entire channel and was like where have you been my whole youtube life!
Funny thing, and true story; I had ordered a RTL-SDR before I found your videos. I have been in the RF/IT industry for a minute and have wanted to buy one for a fat while. I was so mad I didn't buy a HackRF the instant after 😅😅.
Your videos are Hands Down outstanding and you are adding some serious knowledge out there; f-ing love to see it! Pumps me up!
Dont be sorry about your language! Never be! I know you are new to this but some people are further than knowledge can take them.. But I digress, my spelling sucks and I know but talk
to me about this stuff and would blow socks off Haha!
Please keep up the great videos!!!!!!!
I’ve only recently found your channel. Very informative. I’m just getting into the hobby and your channel has videos on everything I’ve been trying to learn.
You should not worry about those negative people your doing a great job explaining Satellites English is great !
I babysit every VHF pass I do with a rotatable setup much like your dish setup for HRPT. It's a fiberglass pole on a ground stake, a coax up the middle to a LNA/BPF, and then the Vs are telescopic elements that rotate and fold down. A reflector completes the build and I attach to my RSP1A which has enough bias T current to run the LNA.
The best thing is that the pole is also telescoping, so after finding the signal at low elevations I just pop up the pole to 2 metres or so, wait until the elevation gets high enough, then lower it back down so the overhead part of the pass is decent.
For automated systems this isn't helpful, of course.
I've used coated wire shelving for wifi antennas before. I wonder if it would work for 2.2G as well? It's cheap, and can be cut to any length. So you can make a good size antenna from it, with panels of the shelving and zipties or 3d printed holders. Just an idea. It would be a lot lighter and easier to transport that a regulars satellite dish. I think it's nooelec that sells a premade dish that looks very similar- but is $200. Maybe use two panels that let you basically fold the 'dish' in half for transport. Or different configs with 3 or 4 panels to assemble an even larger dish..
Totally digging your videos. You come across as real down to earth, and your videos feel like it's just some guys hanging out while you explain things in easy to understand terms and build cool/fun stuff.
Great content, thanks for putting these videos together.
Really love these videos. Super interesting. I'm going to try and decode some images myself someday, and these videos are great guides. Keep up the good work man.
Your English is better than my fiancé’s and she’s from Texas. I enjoy the work you have put into your videos, keep up the amazing job!!!
I love every bit of it!!! I’m the same way trying to explain things, if anything you might have inspired me to maybe attempt to start my own CZcams channel!!!
Cheers man love the satellite videos. Should try hitting the inmarsat L band satellite and decode acarrs,ads-c and s and maybe there voice
your English is very good, I mean everything you say is clearly understood, and I am a non usa born American, my first language is spanish, and my inglish is good but not perfect.
considering how much money you can spend, you are doing very well, very resourceful and practical.
my hats if off to you (americana).
Well this is a different upload! I've really enjoyed your channel, and it's finally spurred me to make the leap from 137 MHz to 1.7 GHz! I am working on a helix now, got your template all printed and just need the other bits...
Just reporting in (although have mentioned it on other videos) to say that this jump is complete and I'm receiving images on L-band now. It was a fun project and I'm enjoying tweaking it for max signal.
awesome channel, keep them videos coming
honoable. bro is not flaming anyone and is honest. very insteresting video
34:42 Thanks for the answer, I am currently using gps lna for hrpt. I advise you to try it too, such an amplifier works much better than spf. You can buy a GPS antenna for $5 and use an amplifier from there.
Also about the feng yun 2H satellite, I do not know if it is working now, when I tried to receive ELECTRO 3, transmissions from the FY 2H went over it. It didn't work out to decode any of this.
Elektro L3 isn't usually bothered by FY-2H, but there are many times where FY-2H doesn't transmit at the same time as L3. In any case FY-2H doesn't transmit anything on LRIT, only on SVISSR (requires a much larger dish).
Your english is really good (better that mine). Thank you for answering my questions. I know now that my life meaning is compleated. Question: is there a diffrence using copper and aluminum for antenna? Wwhai if you use your dish for astroradiology? Point it at sun and you get higher "noise floor". Pointing it at moon ao even at jupiter?
Electrically there is no difference to use copper or aluminium for an antenna. Copper will "survive" for longer outside but is heavy. Aluminium is cheaper and much lighter those two factors is a trade off and usually aluminium will survive at least 10 years so it is used widely .
07:23 I want to know more! Keep it up, love the channel
i renember back in the day i used my PDA for sattelite navigation, as before smartphones were a thing the satnav and PDA kinda merged for that market
and yea it had no issue picking up the sattelites it needed while my nokia 3200 (modern during that time) got no signal whatsoever
i think some sattelite phones exist (they did back then and were extremely expensive to call on) but navigation and cell signal are not related whatsoever*
some commenters are wierd
*actually i think some phones can triagulate a rough position via cell towers and use that to aid navigation, but its just to get a rough idea where you are and not accurate enough standalone for navigation
I can confirm that.
Seeing as you're in Czechia, the elevation angle of QO-100 is somewhere between 30 and 33 degrees. The offset angle on that 1.8M dish is 22.3 degrees, so you're still in positive elevation angle territory and there's no real need to flip the dish upside down. The stock mount for the Prodelin dish provides elevation adjustment to have the back of the dish pointing down as it is. There's really no need to have the feed flipped upside down making it way harder on yourself to make adjustments unless you're looking for things probably below 5 or 10 degrees elevation. I built my own polar mount for mine, so I can get down close to 5 degrees with it in the normal orientation, but that's not with the stock mount. Also, 1.8M dishes are getting harder and harder to find in the US too - lots of them have been out of service for years now, and the roofs they're sitting on are getting re-roofed, and the dishes end up in the landfill. I have a small collection of those dishes, but I knew about probably twice as many of them that I managed to get that I was interested in tat are now in a landfill somewhere.
I often need to aim even lower than 5 degrees
You could branch out into terrestrial SDR and/or amateur radio. Alternatively you could go deeper into satellite telemetry or radio astronomy. Listen only EME? Or bite the bullet and buy a power amp for 2.4GHz for EME and QO-100.
Your English is totally clear and understandable. I can tell you are not a native speaker but I have not yet been confused about your meaning. The people correcting you probably only speak one language. Don't let them make you feel bad. Pronunciation comes with time and honestly doesn't matter anyway.
How about some videos where you build things and viewers can try it at home. Can you make a satellite dish from cardboard and aluminum foil? Can you solder your own LNA? How about testing a cheap LNA ( I just bought a couple of the cheap ones you showed) vs a legit RTL SDR version? Maybe a cheap 3 element yagi?
?
Wait a minute what are you doing with a nokia brick phone on your hand XD
You're doing great and I think your english is next to perfect (if you're not a nitpicking moron). Keep it up. Greetings from Germany.
Couple questions. If I run the same wave file from a satellite through different decoding software, do I get different images or will the all be exactly the same? Will satdump give me better images than a simple, basic program will?
I want to improve the images I'm getting, so I'm thinking about trying other locations to try. What are some tip for picking a location? For instance, I have a big parking lot that's 5 minutes away but still in suburban neighborhoods, and I have a hilltop that I can get to that's about 45 minutes away and more isolated and quiet. Is it worth driving out of town, or should I stick close and use a bigger antenna?
The answer is; sometimes. WxToImg used to break/desync for me on images that NOAA-APT would read absolutely fine and fix any desyncs
But WxtoImg seemed to produce nicer decodes for me, and the enhancements are better.
Luckily SatDump is now up to the same standard WxToImg was, and so I've finally moved across to it full time for VHF reception.
I watched the whole video, i think i should reconsider mylife
If you're open to requests; i know you have that parameter driven CAD file for generating helical antennas. I downloaded it, and have looked at it a bit. I know very little about this yet though, and am not sure what all should be changed.
Can you do a short explanation on what parameters to change (and what to definitely not mess with)?
I will try to write an understandable readme for that github repo with instructions
@@dereksgc Much appreciated!
Are you reading off a Nokia 3310?
Hello. Will you do a tutorial explaining how did you make your LNAs?
Any chance of getting a video on NOAA 21? It only sends downlink on 7.812 GHz
Very little chance right now considering that not a single piece of hardware of my setup is up to the task of receiving that. Hopefully in the future
THANK YOU SO MUCH! you took so much time to answer my questions, and gave some awesome advice with the v dipole, i thought the null bands were from my janky antenna, but now it sounds like i will have to find a hill to lay the antenna lower down on. I've actually listened to the UHF SATCOM pirates, so it sounds like it's time to invest in some hrpt equipment! thank you again, and have a great day!
Can we all donate money and create our own SSTV station and send personalized messenges all around the globle
DankMemeSAT
Theres always hacking satellite tv channels for content 😉
Regarding ELEKTRO, you don't know how to improve the signal quality, I have a dish with a diameter of 1 meter, a good amplifier, but without a filter. The satellite is located at an altitude of almost 20 degrees, but the LRIT signal level is no more than 2-3 db, about 4-5 db is needed for decoding. how can I still amplify the signal? I have already installed 2 amplifiers, but such a setup simply ruined the entire signal and overloaded the receiver.
The filter could help, also take a look at the feed of your dish, that's where the most dB are usually lost or gained. You want to make sure it's LHCP, all connections are solid, and that its beam width is matched to your dish
1 meter won't cut it you need at least 1.8 meters
@@Anjum9694 that is just numbers, you can get it with 80, but usally dish size for it is 120cm
@@dereksgc Are you sure L3 is LHCP? I've been getting it fine on RHCP, from Italy. 9° elevation, 100cm dish, 6dB SNR with Satdump. (Or are you talking about the feed being inverted because of the dish?)
Setup is a G4DDK LNA, Sysmocom filter and Analog Devices PlutoSDR.
@@MrOpenGL It's RHCP, I can't check now, did I say "left" in the video? The search and rescue transponder is LHCP, maybe I got confused
is that a nokia 3310
yeay... i'm early
Im early
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