40Mhz(?)
I thought the NOAA birds on 137Mhz were narrowband slow scan type things?

How long does it take to receive a pic - I'm guessing it takes seconds/minute or so. In which case the bands across the picture look like the duration it takes to send a pager burst and also the amount of bursts and randomness you'd expect.

Near by transmitters on adjacent frequency bands can overload your receiver and cause it to lose the signal from the satellite, hense you get bands of static across the picture as it loses signal then gets it back again as when the pager signal drops all the while your PC/Terminal scrolls out the image.

The antenna certainly looks like it's built for 137MHz band. Pagers are on 157MHz and the transmitters are pretty high power. It's not inconcievable that they are causing de-sensitisation of a 137Mhz receiver but would indicate either it's a pretty shoddy one or a wide band scanner type which is designed to tune to 157Mhz as well.

I don't get any desensing even up on 145Mhz here and the pagers are very very loud round here, but that's on high end amateur receiver(transceiver)

What make/model is your receiver?
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Tue 4 Nov 2008, 18:27, 1 reply)

Aha!
I have an ICOM PCR1000 which I am running using QPcr1k under Debian.

The NOAA sats are meant to be WFM at around 50, yet people say (not NOAA) that 40 is the optimum, I have tried all sorts. Oddly, the clearest I can hear them is in the USB, but the doppler effect completely screws the picture.

I must admit, I was in the New Forest with a hand scanner and NOAA15 sounded as clear as a bell (and that was a shite Tandy job too - about 230 Mhz).

The moment I get back here with the antenna and a decent(ish) scanner I get shite pictures once again.

The reason I thought it was a pager is for the exact reasons you describe.

The start of the scan to the end is about 15-20 minutes dependent on the atmosphere. If it's raining I am f*cked.

I am desperate for help with this one!
(dchurch bah, Tue 4 Nov 2008, 20:18, closed)

ICOM PCR1000
Hmmm.

I'd ditch that and go for a dedicated rig for NOAA. I run an Icom on HF which is the bees knees but the PCR1000 is a dirty old goose. OK for general larking about but no good for spot frequencies or serious work. It's a (very) wide band receiver using a PC for demodulation and decoding which is the worst in both worlds.

Have a look at:
www.eham.net/reviews/detail/4743
for recomendations on a dedicated kit you can build yourself
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Tue 4 Nov 2008, 23:27, closed)

Oooh
Nice! I think I can feel my next project coming on. So to speak.
(dchurch bah, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 11:40, closed)