Meteor M-N1 Still Working, Meteor M-N2 Still Down

The Meteor M N-2 is a polar orbiting Russian weather satellite that was launched in July 2014. It transmits with the LRPT protocol which allows us to receive weather satellite images that are of a much higher resolution than the NOAA APT satellites. For a while since the launch RTL-SDR users had a good time receiving beautiful images from Meteor M-N2, but unfortunately since late last year the N2 LRPT transmitter has been turned off, due to technical problems with the IR sensors as cited by Russian meteorologists.

Fortunately for Meteor N2 enthusiasts the old Meteor M N1 satellite which was thought to be dead sprung back into life around November 2015. Recently Matthew A., a reader of our blog wrote in to let us know that while N2 is still not transmitting, N1 is still transmitting, albeit with somewhat distorted images. Matthew also mentions this link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phqfh1/status.htm, which contains up to date info on the status of all weather satellites. He also writes: 

• While transmissions are readily detectable and decodable at night, it seems that M N-1’s infrared sensors are not functioning. Yielding only black, with the typical noise bars of Red, Green, or Blue
• As has been previously mentioned, Meteor MN-1’s stabilization system has obviously failed, and the horizon is clearly visible. Perhaps not of scientific value, but certainly beautiful. 

We also note that there are several comments over on the Meteor-M N2 news and support website regarding receiving images from N1 and N2. It seems that sometimes N1 also has some problems with transmission, but they are usually quickly fixed.