For more than 50 years the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather satellites have been helping monitor the earth’s weather patterns. Now over on YouTube max30max31 (IZ5RZR) has posted a tutorial on how you can receive images from the NOAA weather satellites (NOAA-9, NOAA-15, NOAA-18, NOAA-19) at home using an RTL-SDR. He gives a full walk through of using Orbitron to track the satellites, WXtoImg to decode received images and using SDRSharp to tune your RTL-SDR. He also suggests building and using a QFH Antenna or Turnstile Antenna with your RTL-SDR to receive the satellites.
Here is a list of programs used and homepage links:
If you’re looking for some antenna designs, check out:
- PHQFH Antenna Construction Guide
- Worlds Lightest QFH Antenna
- QFH Antenna for 137 MHz
- QFH For the Weather Satellite Band
- Turnstile Antenna for Weather Satellites
Here is an example of and image you could receive:
UPDATE: Jordan Jean-Philippe Blanchard has shared a link on the RTL-SDR Facebook Group to his setup for receiving the weather satellite images using an RTL-SDR, check out his setup & check out what he has received.
