This false-colour picture from NOAA17 shows extensive cloud cover over the southeastern corner of Australia. The vertical band at far left shows the sync pulses, while the adjacent vertical black band carries the minute markers (this picture was received over a period of about five minutes). The vertical band at far right represents undecoded telemetry data, which conveys the status of various systems on-board the satellite.

Yes, it's true that you can see weather satellite images (or computer enhanced graphics derived from them) on the TV evening news and you can also download images of "special weather events" like cyclones from sites on the Internet. But there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of receiving them yourself directly from the satellites, as many radio amateurs and other enthusiasts have been doing for decades. And as it happens, this is now a lot easier to do than it has ever been before.

Only a few years ago, you not only needed a suitable receiver and antenna to receive the weather satellite signals but a special decoder box as well, before the signals could be displayed on a PC (using a specially written program). But now, providing your PC is reasonably up to date and has a decent sound card, the decoder box is no longer needed. Instead, you simply feed the audio signals from the receiver into your sound card and record them on your hard disc.

That done, they can be decoded and displayed in one operation, using software that's freely available on the Internet.

So if you'd like to try your hand at receiving weather satellite signals, it's now all fairly straightforward and can be done at low cost (provided you already have a PC).

In this article, we'll give you a quick introduction to weather satellites, describe how they work and describe the kind of receiver, antenna and masthead amplifier you'll need to receive their signals. We'll also discuss the kind of PC you'll need and tell you about some of the software that's available to both track the weather satellites (so that you can be prepared when one comes within range) and then decode their signals after you've received them.