What is the goal of this archive?

The ultimate goal of this archive is to provide historical data from weather satellites for educational and scientific purposes, store it for the sake preservation. Many of these satellites are lost to the sands of time because nobody figured they'd ever need the data again or the recordings they had eventually decayed to the point of non-recoverability.

Why do I maintain it?

I currently host this archive on a spare HDD on my primary server, maintain it for fun. It helps others and takes minimal time to do so, I believe it's a worthwhile cause!

What kinds of data does it store?

As of writing this page, 430 gigabytes of data from 30+ contributors is stored. I currently classify every dataset into on of 5 processing levels, each of which is a processing step ranging from raw baseband to processed imagery. It is determined by the colored flag on the left-hand side of folders as well as by a verbal note in the 'Max availability' column:
5 - Purple - A baseband/IQ recording is available - Useful for writing decoding software as well as seeing how it looked on the baseband level
4 - Blue - A soft symbol recording or an audio recording is available - In case of a digital signal, it allows you to analyze the modulation as well as potentially pull out more data (i.e. if frame syncing code was improved). In case of an audio recording of an analogue signal, it still allows you to reproduce the original imagery using decoding software.
3 - Green - Symbols or frames are available - This is useful for being able to pull imagery out and make adjustments to it on a product level if needed. I.e. if an instrument wasn't calibrated when it was initially decoded, or some data was still left behind, you can redecode it from the frames just fine.
2 - Yellow - Only products - This describes imagery that is stored as SatDump products - you can load it in and modify it using the app. It can include some metadata like projection info, calibration, can make special composites for you.
1 - Red - Only imagery - This describes data that is no more than an image. No symbols were saved, and it is not a product, meaning you can only use external image manipulation tools to process it any further. That is also providing it hasn't already been processed into some composite. In an ideal world I would prefer to have at least a level 3 for digital signals and an audio recording for analogue ones, very few people saved these though - hence why you might see a lot of level 1 data in the older satellites (i.e. VHF)

What data is still missing?

As extensive as the archive might appear, I am still missing quite a lot of satellites and their datasets! These include but are not limited to
GEO:
- Meteosat wefax
- Meteosat xRIT (Only have very limited data)
- GOES-N LRIT/MDL/GVAR/Sounder SD (Before it became EWS-G! So over the US)
- Elektro-L1 xRIT/RDAS

LEO:
- NOAA APT older than NOAA 12
- ~~NOAA HRPT from any sat besides 15/18/19~~ Thanks to DSRS, HRPT data is available from all of POES!
- Seastar (OrbView-2) HRPT
- MetOp LRPT !!! (Metop-A transmitted for a few days)
- Meteor M1 HRPT
- Meteor 3M APT/HRPT
- Meteor 1/Priroda/2 APT (other than Meteor 2-21. NOT M2!)
- FengYun 2A/B/C/D/E/F (S-)VISSR (Or LRIT)
- Fengyun 1 CHRPT

Catch-all
- Any L-band prior to ~2000
- Any VHF prior to ~1990
- Any anomalies - instrument failures leading to strange receptions (i.e. NOAA 17 failing APT broadcasts). THIS IS EXCLUDING NOAA-15 post 2020 and any user-side issues (weak reception, sample drops etc.)

I have some data that I would like to contribute!

Please contact me! I'll take a look at what data you have available, will verify it's suitable for the archive. You can reach me via:
- Mail (meti17207 _at_ gmail.com)
- Twitter (@Meti172172)
- Discord (@cpt-dingus) - Reddit (/u/Meti17207)

History

Initially, this project started as a place to store sample imagery for my satellite reception guide, shortly after adding the imagery I decided I could save whole sample passes - I had a whole spare HDD after all. A reason for doing so is allowing people to view datasets from satellites they can't receive - I still fondly remember the amazement when I first loaded in an HRPT dataset and seeing the volume of data!

At this point the size of the archive was just a few gigabytes, over the coming weeks I kept adding more passes, series, and satellites - until I ran into a wall. Some series were very difficult to get sample imagery from or even find as much as just processed imagery from online, the deeper I went, the more difficult it got - eventually culminating at the point where neither my research nor any of my friends could have been of help. This is when I realized just how valuable this project could be.

Going forward, I started taking this far more seriously - credits, proper file structuring and hopes of improving the UX. This is when I tried sending cold outreach requests to members of this community - some amazing people responded and helped me extend the coverage of this archive with VHF satellites much older than me! On the other side of the spectrum, I decided to create the now massive X-band directory - thanks to kind people spending their time and resources to share data they received, I managed to feature broadcasts that require thousands of euros of equipment.

After a few months of in & out development and leaving the project on the back burner, I decided to start working on the frontend aspect - two days later, the current UI was born. This is where are at now!