Meteorological satellites have been used widely in remote sensing of natural resources and environment. The vegetation index calculated by satellite radiative measurements is an important parameter reflecting land surface characteristics, and has already been used in vegetation monitoring, land surface classification and yield estimation and so on. In this paper, the calculation of vegetation index using AVHRR/NOAA-11 the near-IR and visible channel data in 1992 is described, and the necessity to consider the decay of sensitivity of radiometer on satellite in calibration is pointed out. On the other hand, the channel albedos and vegetation indexes have been investigated and a correction experiment of atmospheric effects has been carried out. The results indicate that the vegetation index could describe land surface characteristics well, but the atmosphere has significant impact on it, and it is necessary to make atmospheric correction.