EUMETCast Reception
Setup for the reception and analysis of EUMETCast Data
Data from EUMETSAT is received via a TV broadcasting satellite, Eurobird9 at 9°E.
The service is called EUMETCast, and it is provided by a tq®-TELLICAST server. The data is only broadcast once so if you miss a transmission you lose the data.
EUMETCast services provided by EUMETSAT include data from Meteosat-9 (MSG-2), Meteosat-8 (MSG-1), FSD, AVHRR, MODIS (Terra/Aqua) and Metop-A.
Meteosat-9 (MSG-2) is a second-generation geostationary weather satellite for Europe, providing twelve spectral channel. FSD - foreign satellite data includes hourly images from geostationary satellites around the world, such as the GOES-West and GOES-East stationed over the Americas, Meteosat-7 provides the Indian Ocean Data Coverage (IODC), and MTSAT-1R covers Asia and Australia.
EARS-AVHRR provides high-resolution 5-channel HRPT image data from the AVHRR scanner on NOAA-19. Data from several ground stations (Canary Islands, Northern France, and Svalbard, north of the Artic Circle) is combined to give Europe-wide coverage. The data has a 1km per pixel ground resolution.
EUMETCast is the main dissemination for data from Metop-A satellite, launched in October 2006. This satellite provides high-resolution continuous round-the-world coverage, with data at 1km per pixel resolution.
80 cm dish and LNB purchased from GEO shop. Mounted close to the ground which is not ideal. Too much risk of signal degradation from overhanging trees.
DVB World DVB-S USB Rx, installed in reception PC. One doesn't use the software provided with the box, using instead that provided by EUMETSAT.
EUMETSAT's EKU, supplied by them at €40. Relevant software package costs a further €60. Both direct from EUMETSAT. Delivered by secure post very quickly.
The screenshot above shows one of the monitoring graphs produced by MRTG (see below). SNR(blue) & Signal Quality(green). My dish is mounted quite low and close to the neighbours fence. I thought I had cleared his overhanging trees, but one can see the impact a very heavy rain shower had on weighing down overhanging branches. The improvement came when I cut back the offending branches. It was still raining.
The second graph shows 'The Squirrel Effect' One morning at 8.00am BST I noticed that my signal quality had fallen. My wife had seen a couple of squirrels collecting berries and nuts in the front garden. At about 9.30 am BST I went out to do a bit of shopping and noted that there were muddy pawprints on the dish. The dish is only a couple of feet from the ground. Closer inspection found mud on the LNB and support arm. Cable seemed intact and I wiped down everything and went on my way. On returning home I found the signal was even worse. Further inspection showed that the cable was partly pulled out of the LNB. The squirrels must be suspect and I had obviously made it worse when giving the dish a quick wipe down. Remaking the connection improved matters. Wildlife can impact on our hobby! It reminded me of when I had a Garden Railway - Hedgehogs and Cats in tunnels, Ants along the rails, Wasp nests under the track, Frogs and Toads in retaining walls ( even found a Newt once) and worst of all were the Thrushes using the rail head to smash their snails - leaving a neat pile for my small scale locos to trip over. Moral - beware squirrels collecting nuts in Fall (or any wildlife for that matter). Glad I have nothing bigger than squirrels to contend with.
My Workstation. It all looks a bit untidy, but works well. I use InputDirector to move between the two PC's. This means I only need one keyboard and one mouse to control everything. Just in view to the left of the screen is the wireless router and there is a seperate modem. The PC's are attached via ethernet cables. The wireless is used by another PC and my laptop.
PC Rosse is the receive PC. This I built in June 2011 after my original 2006 PC died. Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 3.2Ghz RAM 8GB Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. 3 HDD 2 x 1TB and 150GB. It also has s 500MB RamDrive from Dataram This PC is on continuously 24/7. Not only does it run TelliCast all day it also runs David Taylor's MSGDataManger, GeoSatSignal & MSG Animator [see below]. It regularly uploads data to my website via automated FTP.
PC Copernicus. This I built myself in early 2009 following a hard drive failure over Christmas.. Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz, 3.25Gb RAM, 500 Gb Hard drive, 2x200Gb SATA Hard drives in RAID 0. Lots of cooling fans, Artic Cooling CPU heatsink and fan and fanless graphics card. All controlled by the Zalman fan controller with the blue led's visible. Runs very quietly and temperatures about 10 deg above ambient. Win XP Pro. This PC runs all David Taylor's Metop Manager & AVHRR Manager (see below) along with everything else [Browsing, Email, word processing, PowerPoint, Photoshop,] runs as required. Obviously needs its annual dusting!
Software
DVB and TelliCast Data from the satellite is tagged with a packet identifier called the PID, and using the setup for your DVB USB Box you can choose which PIDs the card should handle. Individual PIDs are set in the DVB software.
The data is sent from the DVB card to the TelliCast receiving program as an IP multicast stream. The data is further divided into different channels. A single PID may contain a number of different streams, but each stream will have a different multicast address. The multicast address of the "Announcement channel" stream is fixed, and that channel talks to the TelliCast program saying what data is available.
The TelliCast program is configured to accept particular data channels (by editing the recv-channels.ini file in the TelliCast software -see my config file below), and if you are allowed access by your EKU, when data is available for that channel, the TelliCast program will "join" the multicast being sent out via the DVB software, and when the DVB software finds a "joined" channel, it will send out the data packets for that stream to the appropriate multicast address.
The DVB box comes with its own software. This allows the card to receive data and TV broadcasts. It is generally highly recommended that you only use the software from EUMETSAT which contains the recommended V4.4.4a SkyStar drivers, and installing no software from the TechniSat CD. The required software is supplied on CD if one buys the USB Box from GEO.
Some parameters of reception such as Signal Strength and Signal Quality can be monitored by MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher).
To set up your own MRTG process see bottom of page.
Data is transmitted from the various spacecraft to Earth stations in Germany (Meteosat 9), Svalbard (Metop-A) and Canary Islands, Northern France, and Svalbard (NOAA 17/18 AVHRR).
Meteosat 9 data is refined, compressed and encoded as HRIT and LRIT files.
The HRIT and LRIT files are added to the EUMETCast service.
The EUMETCast data is sent up to the Eurobird 9 satellite as small packets.
Other packets of data, such as Metop-A and Foreign Satellite Data (FSD) are also sent up to Eurobird 9, but with different packet identifiers (PIDs).
The Dish, LNB, and Skystar2 card receive the packets of data.
The Server4PC turns the data packets into a TCP/IP stream, passing only the PIDs you have selected in the software.
The T-Systems TelliCast software turns the DVB card into a channel through which files are received from EUMETSAT and dumped on your PC. The TelliCast software recovers the files from the TCP/IP stream, looking only at the data channel names you have selected.
The data channels chosen in my system are in my recv-channels config file. Follow links here for full files.
The various pages of the Tellicast software give information regarding data traffic, active channels and the number of lost and recovered data packets.
Data Manager software turns the files into a usable format for producing images.
I use the following software from David Taylor.
To manage and decode Meteosat-9 (MSG-2) data, I use MSG Data Manager.
To make real-time monochrome animations from Meteosat-9 or Foreign Satellite Data, I use MSG Animator.
To make false-colour images, remap to standard map projections, or animate the images I use GeoSatSignal.
To manage and decode Metop-A data I use Metop Manager.
To manage and decode NOAA 17/18 data I use AVHRR Manager.
To make false colour corrected images out of this data I use HRPT Reader.
I also use Kepler Manager (satellite orbital information), WxTrack (satellite tracking), GroundMap (Correct Geometry Mapping).
For More Information on David Taylor's software go to his exellent and informative site.
David has written extensively about EUMETCast and his software on his website.
In my opinion using his software is the only practical 'joined up' solution to managing the vast amount of data available from EUMETCast.
The software is competetively priced (you get a months free trial for each program).
The software is continually updated. Almost uniquely you have direct access to the author and fellow users through his SatSignal Yahoo Group.
If you require further information on my system and setup email me. There is much more information on David Taylor's website with links to other fora.
Join GEO, Group for Earth Observation
Look at the EUMETSAT website for more technical information on EUMETCast, including hardware requirements, how to buy an EKU and relevant software and a comprehensive trouble shooting guide.
For more detail see a .pdf file of an article I wrote for The GEO Quarterly #15 Sept 2007
How to set up MRTG Multi Router Traffic Grapher on a Windows PC.
Create 3D Images from HRPT Data