I have had an interest in radio receiving since childhood, but have only recently had the time available to explore to any depth.

In August 2001, after reading an article by Robby Bain in a radio magazine I decided to explore NOAA and Meteor APT transmissions. My first attempt was with my ICOM PCR1000 scanner, a Toshiba laptop and crossed dipole antenna from Timestep. After a lot of help from Robby, the results were not too bad especially as the aerial was propped up on a bed in the spare room!!!!! I did find however that although the ICOM was fine for single frequency reception it wasn't brilliant when scanning for satellite transmissions as it couldn't quite work out what was interference and what was a signal. I decided to purchase a RIG RX2 second hand and move the aerial into my loft space for a better horizon. The results bore a marked improvement and with some more very patient help from David Taylor I managed to get Satsignal and Satbatch working properly.

My set-up at present is a, Timestep crossed dipole antenna, RX2 receiver, Pentium P166 32mb ram running 24hrs with Wxsat and Wxtrack networked to a Cyrix 300 256mb ram, running Wxtrack, Satsignal and Satbatch. I'm located in Stowmarket, Suffolk and am halfway down the side of a small valley which means I don't get the acquisition of signal quite as early as the tracking programs indicate. An extra problem is that I have a water tower 200yds away, which is bristling with aerials, some of which are pagers. All in all not the best spot to be using for APT I'm afraid.

On 5^th January 2002 I fitted a RIG/Timestep pre-amp and this does seem to have made a difference. I still didn't get a full pass, so I elected to mount the aerial on the chimney, this was done on the 15^th of January and was a major success.

I'll add from time to time some images I've captured and would be pleased to have any constructive criticism emailed to me nick@sunwharf.com as I'm keen to improve and learn. I shall change the images as better or more interesting ones arrive, but I will leave the original images received before I fully sorted things as a guide to anyone who may find this useful. I have included the full recorded pass including interference as a comparison for anyone who is interested.

I plan one day to try HRPT, but that's a way off as the budget isn't available yet.

 All the images from this point onwards were with the turnstile mounted on the chimney and the pre-amp fitted