Are you listening at the right times and on the right frequencies? I guess
that you must be listening for the polar orbiters on it on 137 megs ? At the
moment, only NOAA's 15,17 and 18 are active ( 137.5, 137.62, 137.1 MHz ).
NOAA 12 ( 137.5 MHz also ) has been off the air for several weeks because of
transmission conflict. If you are using just the Bearcat's own antenna, the
longest pass that you are going to hear is only about 15 minutes, and there
will only be two that long per satellite, each day - one northbound, and one
south - so you need to be listening at the right times. There is plenty of
free predictor software out there. Go to David Taylor's site and pick up a
copy of WxTrack. You could also Google "Wxtoimg". This is a free satellite
decoder software that uses the PC soundcard. It is capable of updating its
Kepler list from the American Celestrak site, and then if you just leave it
running, it will tell you at the bottom of the screen which satellite it is
next expecting to 'hear' from, and at what time.
One final point. I don't know if you have ever actually received and decoded
any pictures from these sats using this receiver, but if not, when you do,
you might find the results a little disappointing. The reason for this is
that the bandwidth of the IF filters in a scanner are too narrow on the
standard "narrow" setting, and too wide on the broadcast "wide" setting
intended for commercial FM radio reception. If you are intending having a go
at this seriously, you could do a lot worse than look for a second hand RX2
receiver, or even treat yourself to a new one - they're not expensive.
For much more help and info, go to
http://www.geo-web.org.uk/
, and a manual. You pay shipping and it's yours.
