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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 Meteosat-9 (MSG-2), FSD, AVHRR and now Metop-A data.
Meteosat-9 (MSG-2) is a second-generation geostationary weather satellite for Europe, providing twelve spectral channels.

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-17 and NOAA-18. 
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. This is mounted in the front garden on the fence. The fence posts not being absolutely rigid, an additional pole is driven into the ground. I am looking at ways of mounting on the end wall of the house.
Unfortunately the ideal mounting wall has a telephone pole right in the line of sight.
TechniSat-DVB-PC-TV-Star-PCI card, installed in reception PC (Kepler) All the PCs have names associated with Astronomy. One doesn't use the software provided with the card, 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.
The screenshot to the left 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.
SOFTWARE
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 DVB card comes with TechniSat 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 V4.3.0 SkyStar drivers, and installing no software from the TechniSat CD.
The image on the left shows information relating to Signal Quality, SNR and BER.

This information is monitored by MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher).

To set up your own MRTG process click here
DVB and TelliCast

Data from the satellite is tagged with a packet identifier called the PID, and using the setup for your DVB card you can choose which PIDs the card should handle. 
Individual PIDs are set in the DVB software (right-click the green satellite icon       Setup4PC, Data Services).
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.
[EUMETSAT Data Channel 1]
target_directory=D:\received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 2]
target_directory=D:\received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 3]
target_directory=D:\received

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 4]
target_directory=D:\received\Data Channel 4

[EUMETSAT Data Channel 5]
target_directory=D:\received-56

[EPS-10]
target_directory=D:\EPSreceived

[EPS-18]
target_directory=D:\EPSreceived\EPS18
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)
My Workstation.
It all looks a bit untidy, but works well. I use Synergy 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 Kepler is the receive PC.
This HP pavilion was bought as one intended mainly for students. AMD Sempron 1800MHz. 80Gb hard drive, 1Gb RAM and Win XP Home
I added another 1Gb RAM and a second 200GB SATA harddrive. It also has a Q Soft 320 Mb Ramdrive installed. There is a free AR-Soft RamDisk, which is unsupported, available on the MSG-1 yahoo group.
I also changed the case cooling to something quieter. 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].
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 and a 500Gb USB external drive for storage. 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,FTP software, regularly getting data from Kepler and uploading it to my web pages] for about 16-18 hours per day.
Obviously needs its annual dusting!
The T-Systems TelliCast software (seen here to the left) 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 given below in my recv-channels config file. Or follow links here for full files.
recv.ini
recv-channels.ini
David Taylor's Software for Managing and Processing EumetCast Data
For more information about this software follow the link above.
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. SatSignal@yahoogroups.com
I have included basic information and some screenshots from each program. For more details visit David's website.
MSG DataManager
The MSG Data Manager is a Windows program that will process the files received from MSG-2.  The data manager will automatically process the files into images, and optionally delete the large amounts of source data that would otherwise accumulate.  The program allows you to choose which of the twelve channels you process to images, and also allows you to keep some raw data in the processing PC should you wish.
The screenshots to the right show MSG-2, FSD and Setup pages.
MSG Animator
The MSG Animator provides real-time animation of images from MSG-2 and other weather satellites received with the MSG Data Manager. Multiple simultaneous, independent animations, updated in real time as new data becomes available. Animation of Meteosat-7& 9, MTSAT-1R, & GOES East & West data providing world-wide coverage. Looping and smoothing of animations. False-colour option. Control over animation length. Save an animation in standard Windows AVI format.
GeoSatSignal
GeoSatSignal is designed to process geostationary satellite data.  As the data is a sequence of images from the same well-defined location, more complex processing can be done. GeoSatSignal allows you to combine data in a number of ways:
        -multiple channels to produce a false-colour image, including channel differences
        -multiple segments of a single satellite view
        -multiple satellites to produce a world view
        -multiple times to produce an animation
        -correct data to standard map projection
Some sample job settings
Metop Manager
-move the data chunks from the TelliCast received directory to their final directory
-convert the data chunks from EPS to a standard HRPT format - allows you to use standard software for further processing
-provide a lossless compressed HPT format
-provide a thumbnail JPEG file for each chunk
-organise the data by days in a standard \year\month\day\ directory hierarchy
-includes a Browser view of a whole day's passes on a world map
-choice of displaying ascending, descending passes or both
-select chunks to be combined with a simple mouse stroke
-combine HRPT files from multiple chunks to a single "pass"
-automatically display the "pass" in the HRPT Reader software

Two screenshots are shown
The first is the 'World View ' page. This displays the received chunks from the current orbit.
The second is the 'Browser' view. All chunks received in a day are displayed here and can be selected (individually or a sequence) as a preview or for further processing in HRPT Reader.
HRPT Reader
This program reads HRPT produced in both Metop Manager and AVHRR Manager.
The program will allow you to make false colour images by combining the five or more available channels into red, green, and blue or, if you prefer, by taking one of the visible channels as brightness and one of the IR channels as colour.
You can save what you create in compressed and uncompressed formats and geometrically corrected or not.
Uncorrected files can be remapped in GroundMap another of David's programs.
Further processing can be done in a photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop™
AVHRR Manager
The AVHRR Manager assists with the reception and management of NOAA-17/18 AVHRR data being sent over EUMETCast.
The AVHRR Manager will:
        De-compress the NOAA-17/18 data.
        Re-assemble of the segmented data into composite AVHRR files.
        Handle out-of-order data.
        Provide quick-look Map View display of current pass.
        Provide a view of the latest segment processed.
        Provide a browser for both image thumbnails and AVHRR data, with quick access to processing software.
The composite output produced by the program is in a standard format, allowing viewing by software like my HRPT Reader.
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 Win XP computer


Create 3D Images from HRPT Data


Checking Signal Strength and Selecting PID's in 'Setup4PC'



Alan Banks © 2010 All rights reserved