Explaining the 9A4QV V-Dipole Design for Receiving 137 MHz Weather Satellites
Back in 2017 we posted about Adam 9A4QV's simple V-Dipole antenna design which works very well for receiving NOAA and Meteor weather satellites at 137 MHz. This type of antenna is a lot easier to build compared to a QFH or turnstile, and it results in good performance if built and set up correctly. Over the years he notes that he's received a number of questions asking to clarify the design and so he's uploaded a YouTube video which explains the built and dimensions of the antenna clearly.
I was able to receive 137MHz weather sat signals fairly clearly with an old set of rabbit ears and it’s attached balun connected to an airspy and also with an RTL-SDR v3. I must also say though that I did not record or attempt to decode the signal so I can’t attest to it’s effectiveness at decoding weather sat images, but if all you’re interested in is seeing what the waterfall looks like, a good ‘ol set of rabbit ears will get you at least that far. I also highly recommend using gpredict to tell you when the right time to look for a signal is. That is especially important for me as a live in a valley that is surrounded by mountains so the window in which I can receive any sat signals is very short.
Had great results with the RTL Blog dipole antenna which is rabbit ears that came with my v3 dongle. Slap it into a v-dipole shape and the sats come down nicely.
I’m finding that just about any antenna that is horizontally polarized seem to do fairly good. I’m using my HexBeam and I get pretty decent pictures, however, I’m building one of this this weekend, as I still have bands of noise in the pictures.
I should have said Horizontally orientated.