software to decode APT and WEFAX signals from weather satellites

WXtoImg The world's best weather satellite (WXsat) signal to image decoder. Simply connect a 137-138MHz FM communications receiver, scanner, or weather satellite receiver to your soundcard and get stunning colour images directly from weather satellites. The only other item you'll need is an antenna for receiving the circularly polarised signals. WXtoImg is a fully automated APT and WEFAX weather satellite (wxsat) decoder. The software supports recording, decoding, editing, and viewing on all versions of Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. WXtoImg supports real-time decoding, map overlays, advanced colour enhancements, 3-D images, animations, multi-pass images, projection transformation (e.g. Mercator), text overlays, automated web page creation, temperature display, GPS interfacing, and control for many weather satellite receivers, communications receivers, and scanners. NOAA 18 was launched 20 May 2005 and is now transmitting You should download version 2.6.9 to fully enable NOAA 18 support. NOAA 18 is temporarily transmitting sensors 1 and 2 (visible and near-infrared). Images from night-time passes will be completely black and the MSA and MCIR enhancements and most other enhancements will not work. Use the Vegetation enahcement for a colour image -- it's a rare opportunity. The IR sensors on NOAA 18 were turned on 5 June, however they are not yet being transmitted on APT. Once the APT signal transmits the IR sensors (which could be as late as early July), NOAA 18 will function like all the other NOAA satellites. Note: you may need to upgrade your hardware to receive NOAA 18 because it transmits on 137.9125 MHz (and may transmit on 137.1MHz in the future). RX2 users must upgrade the PIC microcontroller using either the GEO-PIC or the Rigsat RX2 PIC. Hamtronics R139 users will need new crystals. Timestep PROscan users will need to contact Timestep for information on obtaining new crystals. R2FX users may wish to download the configurator and run it to upgrade their receiver to pick up NOAA 18 when not using WXtoImg's computer control. WXtoImg makes use of the 16-bit sampling capabilities of soundcards to provide better decoding than is possible with expensive purpose-designed hardware decoders. WXtoImg comes in a basic freeware version that provides a large range of features. Improved automation, new enhancements, a wider variety of options, projection transformations and improved quality images from communications receivers and scanners are available by upgrading the software. Features Automates the recording and decoding of APT signals from polar orbiting weather satellites and WEFAX signals from geostationary satellites, real-time display of image data sent from satellite, revised temperature colour HVCT enhancement produces stunning colour images, new daytime MSA enhancement produces stunning natural colour images, new MCIR enhancement produces natural colour images day and night, creates 3-D (anaglyph) images showing cloud layers (requires special glasses for viewing) **, supports a wide range of enhancements. works well with communications receivers and scanners (example scanner images) **, creates animated movies from geostationary satellites (Meteosat, GOES), creates animated movies from polar orbiting satellites **, creates composite images from multiple polar satellite passes covering a wide area **, complete automation including Kepler downloads **, active satellite configuration, image and animation building **, old file deletion, and web page publishing, GPS interface (NMEA) for setting latitude and longitude and keeping the PC clock set accurately (NMEA v2.x) **, completely automated web page production and publishing (see Images), illumination compensation control dramatically improves dark areas in visible images caused by low sun angles, built-in satellite pass report, transforms APT images to standard map projections (Mercator**, etc.), configurable text displayed on images (satellite name, time, etc.) **, overlay maps with adjustable colours and feature sets (rivers, lakes, cities, country borders, lat/lon, ground station location), pass based recording (record only the good portion of high elevation passes from selected satellites), support for control of receivers: AOR (AR3000, AR5000, etc.), Bearcat (BC895XLT, BC780XLT, BC245XLT, etc.), Yaesu (FT-817, FT-847, VR-5000, etc.), Kenwood (TS-870S, etc.), ICOM (IC-PCR100, IC-PCR1000, IC-R7000, IC-R7100, IC-R8500, IC-R9000, IC-R10, etc.) R2F, R3F, R2FX, RX2, Timestep PROscan with i-interface, SAN 200, WRX-137, and user supplied external including doppler frequency compensation for narrow bandwidth receivers **, support for rotor controllers: CX6DD, DL7AOT, EASYCOMM I, GS-232A, LVB Tracker, RC2800, SAEBRTrack, SatDrive, and Satellite Tracker Jr. **, temperature under cursor display, satellite elevation and azimuth under cursor **, latitude and longitude under cursor display **, distance and bearing from ground station under cursor display **, user configurable filtering, despeckling, sharpening, contrast enhancement, gamma correction, and JPEG quality, auto recording mode allows WXtoImg to be used while waiting for next satellite **, back-to-back recording ensures no missed satellite passes while WXtoImg is building images, animations and web pages from the previous pass, priority based recording ensures the pass you want is chosen when multiple satellites are overhead (requires receiver control), antialiased map overlays, doppler correction (no bent images), reads .NOA files and Quorum BMP files (as raw image input), command line operation for embedded applications, NOAA APT and GOES WEFAX thermal IR temperature calibration, and NOAA APT sea surface temperature calibration. ** features available only in an upgraded version. 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