Over on the SatDump blog developers Aang23 and Lego11 have recently uploaded a post discussing their plans to move SatDump towards Version 2.0.0. SatDump is currently the most comprehensive and popular software for SDR users wanting to decode images and data from satellites.
The developers note that their update frequency has slowed down recently due to their focus on V2.0.0. The new version introduces significant under-the-hood changes that will make SatDump easier to manage and develop in the future, and also focuses on improved documentation.
Users of SatDump will also see an improved GUI, new functionality such as crop, an SSTV decoder, support and improvements for a wide range of satellites, any many other improvements discussed in the post.
We note that V2.0.0 has not yet been released. The post notes that at some point in the near future they will begin merging the new V2.0.0 branch into master, followed by frequency alpha releases, before finally releasing an official V2.0.0.
Over on YouTube Gabe from the saveitforparts channel has uploaded a new video discussing the decommissioning of NOAA-15 and NOAA-19. We also previously posted about this topic a few days ago, if you are interested.
NOAA-15 was scheduled to shut down on August 12, 2025, but due to anomalies with NOAA-19, the decommissioning date of NOAA-15 has been extended by a few days until the week of August 18th. NOAA-19 has recently been experiencing transmitter failures, and it may be impossible to receive signals from it at the moment, despite its expected decommissioning date of August 19, 2025.
In the video, Gabe also rushes to try and receive signals from all transmitters on NOAA-15 one last time, setting up VHF, L-Band, and S-Band receivers. He experiences some issues with weak signals, interference, and recording failures, but ultimately succeeds in capturing all three signals during one of the final passes of NOAA-15.
US Government Shutting Down More Weather Satellites
Over on YouTube Matt from the Tech Minds YouTube channel has recently uploaded a new video where he tests out our Discovery Dish antenna. Discovery Dish is designed to be a low-cost, portable solution for receiving L-band and S-band weather satellites, Inmarsat satellites, conducting amateur hydrogen line radio astronomy, and more.
In the video, Matt unboxes the Discovery Dish and provides an overview of the build process before demonstrating its use in decoding AERO and STD-C messages on Inmarsat. He then shows the dish and Inmarsat feed being used to receive Iridium satellites, and how they can be decoded using iridium-extractor with a HackRF or Airspy R2.
Finally, Matt swaps out the Inmarsat feed for the Hydrogen Line feed. Using SDR#, the IF AVG plugin, and Stellarium, he was able to obtain a clear hydrogen line peak.
This Discovery Dish Is The ONLY Satellite Dish You Will Need!
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have recently announced that they are planning to decommission NOAA 15 and NOAA 19 on August 12, 2025 and August 19, 2025 respectively.
Update #7: NOAA has completed End of Life (EOL) testing activities for NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 and will commence the decommission process shortly. These two remaining satellites in the NOAA Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) Constellation are far beyond their primary mission design life. All have incurred subsystem and instrument degradation or failures and have entered a "twilight phase" where failure modes are increasingly likely. As a reminder, NOAA-18 was decommissioned on June 6, 2025 at 1740 UTC due to an unrecoverable failure to the S-Band transmitter. The remaining satellites in the legacy POES constellation will be decommissioned as follows: NOAA-15 on August 12, 2025 and NOAA-19 on August 19, 2025.
NOAA-15, NOAA-18, and NOAA-19 have long been core satellites for RTL-SDR users. For many of us, one of these would have been the first satellite from which we received weather data via the 137 MHz APT signal.
These NOAA satellites were marked end-of-life (EOL) back on June 16, 2025. However, EOL status still meant that transmissions would continue as normal. The EOL status simply marked that the satellites should no longer be used for mission-critical services, and that no attempts at repair or recovery would be made if needed.
On June 06, 2025, just before the EOL status officially went into effect, NOAA-18 was decommissioned and shut down due to a prior transmitter failure that left ground control in danger of being unable to control the satellite in the future.
While nothing critical appears to have happened to the remaining NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 satellites as of yet, these are ageing satellites with various ongoing issues. NOAA-15 was launched in 1998, and NOAA-19 in 2009. They have long exceeded their design life.
As with NOAA-18's decommissioning, it does not appear that NOAA will deorbit the satellites. Instead, they will be left in orbit and put into a safe electrical state, with the transmitters shut down.
Thank you to Nagy István for writing in and sharing with us his video showing how he uses a home-made backfire helix antenna and the JAERO software to receive and decode Inmarsat Aero at 1545 MHz. AERO messages are a form of satellite ACARS, typically containing short messages from aircraft, and some channels also support digital voice communications.
The backfire helix is an antenna design that consists of a helically wound wire, typically wound around a 3D-printed frame, attached to a large backplane. Recently, a similar design called a 'heliocone' has become popular for use with 1.7 GHz polar orbiting satellites.
In the video, Nagy shows two designs, one of his own and the other by Digitalelektro, and the good SNR that he's achieved with them in JAERO.
Inmarsat Aero 1545Mhz decoding with Backfire helix / JAERO software
Over on his YouTube channel dereksgc has uploaded a video showing how to decode Slow Scan Television (SSTV) transmissions from the QO-100 satellite. QO-100 is a commercial geostationary communications satellite available in some parts of the world that also carries a popular transponder for amateur radio. SSTV is an amateur radio communications analog protocol for transmitting images over a narrowband RF signal.
In the video dereksgc shows how to use SDR Console V3 together with a program like MMSSTV for decoding the image. He goes on to discuss the specific SSTV frequencies on QO-100, the different SSTV modes, and some demonstrations of images being received.
Decoding SSTV transmissions from the QO-100 satellite (QO-100 pt.2)
At the beginning of this month, we posted about SkyRoof, a new software program by VE3NEA for receiving and tracking ham radio satellites with an RTL-SDR and other SDRs.
Recently, Matt from the TechMinds channel uploaded a video on YouTube testing out SkyRoof. In the video, Matt explains the software's various sections and features, such as Doppler correction. He then goes on to demonstrate various audio voice signals being received with the software.
SkyRoof - A Brand New Satellite Tracking Software With Built In SDR Software - This is awesome!
A few days ago, we posted news that NOAA-18 was to begin decommissioning steps effective immediately due to a recent transmitter failure. Multiple reports have now confirmed that NOAA-18 has indeed shut down as of 1740 UTC 06/06/2025.
