[PCR-1000] Weather Fax try it!!

[Jim Shaffer]

> Well I went to that site and downloaded Wxsat and within about two hours
> I almost had a picture I could tell was something. I think the main
> problem is that I am looking at images which are taken at night. 

One thing that you'll find helpful, if you have enough disk space, is to 
record the audio as you're decoding the picture.  That way, you can try again 
with different parameters if you don't get something useful.  For example, at 
night only the infrared image will be useful.  But it will often be washed 
out if you decode it at the same brightness level as the visual image.  
Somewhere I found a really nice web site explaining how to tune all the 
parameters for the best image, including color.  I'll post the address if I 
can find it again.

> I will let the thing run for a day or two and see what comes up.

Don't bother with NOAA-16, its VHF section is dead.  (A real shame, 
because it was the loudest one when it was working.  NOAA-17 is going up this 
year, hopefully, if nobody suddenly decides they need more spy satellites.)  
One of the others, I think 15, has a failing image scanner which produces 
garbage from time to time.  

You can also get images from the geostationary weather satellites rebroadcast 
on shortwave, along with all sorts of weather charts intended for ships.  
Schedules are on http://hffax.de

I'm waiting for the International Space Station to get their full ham radio 
setup assembled.  They're eventually going to start sending live pictures via 
SSTV.  If you want to try decoding SSTV from terrestrial sources now, get 
MMSSTV from http://www.qsl.net/mmhamsoft/mmsstv/ and listen on 14.230 USB.  
If you want to know how far the signal is travelling, look up any callsigns 
you see or hear at telnet:callsign.ualr.edu:2000