Satellite Weather

[SV Someday Came]

Has anyone here any experience with satellite weather fax receivers? Specifically, I am looking at:

http://www.df2fq.de/index_eng.html
http://www.hamtronics.com/r139.htm
http://www.alden.com/products.html

I have also been studying the site Home and this is proving to be fascinating to me.

This stuff really works (I know, a no brainer to all the engineers here), but I downloaded Multimode (MultiMode - CW RTTY SSTV FAX MORSE PSK31 ACARS SITOR AMTOR ALE DTMF FFT ASCII Decoding Software for the Macintosh) and I simply turned on this radio: Dual Conversion Shortwave radio with side Band, SSB Radio, Kaito KA1103, launched Multimode, tuned to 4386 and I could not believe my eyes. A weather fax showing the highs and lows in the pacific ocean drew itself line by line on my Mac. The amazing thing is that there was no physical connection between the KA1103 and my Mac. The internal mic on the Mac picked up the speaker from the radio!!!

Amazing.

And now I want to explore the area of satellite imaging more. So if someone here has experience with setting up a system, I would really appreciate an article or two.... I mean a post or two. I am not afraid to bottom feed -- it is clear to me that although you can spend a thousand or more on a Furuno unit (cf to the Hamtronic unit at 279$), if you look around you can put together an incredible system for a lot less money.

Michael