Tagged: NOAA

The Open-Weather Project’s Year Of Weather: June 15 NOAA EOL Nowcast Scheduled

Dr. Sasha Engelmann and Sophie Dyer, the team behind the Open-Weather project have recently announced a NOAA end-of-life nowcast to be recorded on June 15 2025. An open weather nowcast is a collaborative effort with users all around the world sending in weather satellite images that they have received locally with their home SDR setups.

NOAA satellite weather image APT transmissions have long been a staple of RTL-SDR hobbyists as they are among the easiest and cheapest satellite transmissions to receive. A simple V-dipole, RTL-SDR, and a computer are all that is required.

Sadly, it was recently announced that the NOAA satellites will be classified as end-of-life (EOL) on June 16 2025. However, the good news is that APT and HRPT data transmissions are expected to continue as usual. The end-of-life status indicates that NOAA will cease its own collection of data from these satellites and, hence, will no longer be distributing the datasets online. It also means that the satellites should no longer be used for mission-critical or scientific purposes and that no attempt will be made to fix a failing satellite.

These satellites have been operating well past their operational life, and given their advanced age, failure could come at any time. So the Open-Weather nowcast on June 15 2025 remains a nice way to honor their service to humanity.

You can see the last Year of Weather map created by the Open-Weather team and contributors here https://open-weather.community/yow/map/

The recent newsletter from the Open-Weather team explains how to participate in the June 15 nowcast.

OpenWeather Current Screenshot
OpenWeather Current Screenshot

NOAA 15, 18, 19 End of Life Announcement – But Transmissions will Continue for Hobbyists

Over on the USradioguy.com blog, we've seen news from Carl Reinmann noting that NOAA 15, 18, and 19 will be classed as end-of-life on June 16, 2025. These NOAA satellites are ones commonly used by RTL-SDR hobbyists to download weather satellite images, either via APT on 137 MHz with a V-dipole antenna, or via HRPT on 1.7 GHz with a tracking dish antenna.

Initially, it was thought that this meant that transmissions would cease. However, Carl Reinmann has now clarified with NOAA that transmissions of the APT and HRPT signals will continue as usual. Importantly, NOAA urges that these transmissions will only be "data of opportunity" and should no longer be used for operational purposes (not for anything safety-critical, for example). The transmissions will be fine for everyday hobbyist use.

However, this does mean that should the sensors on these satellites start failing, no attempt will be made to repair them from the ground, and in case of critical failures, the satellites will be decommissioned. In the past, we've seen NOAA 15's scan motor fail multiple times before coming back to life. It's not clear if the satellite received commands from the ground that helped recover it or if the motor just recovered by itself.

The NOAA satellites have lived well past their operational life.
The NOAA satellites have lived well past their operational life.

Using our RTL-SDR Blog Dipole as a V-Dipole for Receiving Weather Satellites

With our RTL-SDR Blog dipole antenna set, it is possible to use it in a "V-dipole" configuration to receive polar-orbiting weather satellites such as NOAA and Meteor at 137 MHz. More information on this can be found on our page at www.rtl-sdr.com/DIPOLE.

If you are after more visual instruction, "Baltic Lab" has uploaded a clear video on YouTube showing how to set the dipole leg lengths and angles correctly for weather satellite reception. 

We want to add that it is also important to remember to mount the antenna outdoors horizontally and in a north-south orientation with a clear view of the sky for the best results.

How To Build A V Dipole For Receiving Weather Satellites

A 3D Printed V-Dipole Guide for the RTL-SDR Blog Dipole Kit

Thank you to Denis for submitting his 3D printable V-dipole guide for our RTL-SDR Blog Dipole Antenna set. The guide holes the dipole at a 120-degree V-shape angle, which is ideal for receiving polar-orbiting satellites such as NOAA and Meteor at 137 MHz. 

Back in 2017, Adam 9A4QV wrote about how a V-Dipole could be used as a very simple yet effective antenna for receiving weather satellites. Since then, it has become a popular beginner's choice for receiving weather satellites.

In the past, we've also seen other 3D-printed V-dipole holders, such as this one by f16v1per. However, f16v1per relies on cable ties to hold the elements in place, whereas the design by Denis simply slides in place.

If you don't have an RTL-SDR Blog Dipole Antenna, you can also build a V-dipole out of an electrical terminal block and a different 3D-printed part, as shown in this previous post.

3D Printed V-Dipole Holder
3D Printed V-Dipole Holder

Saveitforparts Checks out the Discovery Dish

Over on his YouTube channel 'saveitforparts,' Gabe has uploaded a video checking out and reviewing our Discovery Dish product that we successfully crowd-funded on CrowdSupply back in December 2023.

Discovery Dish is designed as a low-cost way to dive straight into backyard satellite experiments, including receiving L-band and S-Band weather satellites as well as Inmarsat satellites. It also offers an easy entry into making galactic Hydrogen line observations.

The dish is a 70cm prime focus dish, that can easily be broken down into three parts for easy storage and transport. The feeds are fully integrated, meaning that the feed antenna, LNA, and filtering are all in one unit and built into a waterproof enclosure. This means there is no need to purchase individual components and figure out waterproofing.

In his video, Gabe unboxes the Discovery Dish, builds it, and uses the L-band feed to receive a few images from GOES 16, Meteor M3, Meteor M4, and METOP weather satellites. He goes on to successfully test reception with the S-band feeds on NOAA weather satellites, before testing out the Inmarsat feed and successfully receiving signals. Finally, Gave notes that he hopes to test out the Hydrogen Line feed in a future video.

Checking Out The Discovery Dish - A Simple & Easy-To-Use Satellite Antenna For Everyone!

Saveitforparts: Testing a 3D Printable Satellite Antenna for NOAA, Meteor and other Polar Orbiting L-Band Satellites

Over on the saveitforparts channel, Gabe has uploaded a video showing a 3D-printable helicone antenna for receiving weather images from polar-orbiting L-band satellites like NOAA and Meteor. This antenna has become popular in the community as it is relatively easy to build, lightweight, and small enough to be handheld. The 3D model files are available on Thingiverse.

In the video, Gabe shows that initially, he had multiple failed print attempts on the helical scaffold due to the legs warping. He was able to solve this and get a working print by slightly modifying the 3D model to have additional center supports. He then goes on to show the rest of the build, which involves coiling the helix antenna, cutting the reflector out of sheet metal, screwing together the reflector supports, and mounting the reflector mesh.

Finally, he shows that he was able to get successful image reception from NOAA HRPT satellites using hand tracking, with a phone running an RTL-SDR and SatDump for tracking and decoding.

This 3D-Printed Satellite Antenna Is Fantastic!

Open-Weather APT: Updates to the Web Based NOAA APT Image Decoder

Dr. Sasha Engelmann and Sophie Dyer, the team behind the Open-Weather project have recently announced the launch of their new version of open-weather apt, a web-based NOAA APT image decoder. The web-based program accepts a WAV file containing a NOAA satellite APT recording, demodulates and decodes it, and displays the resulting weather satellite image.

Sasha writes:

In our recent newsletter, we summarised the updates as follows:

Open-weather apt is the only public, maintained, browser-based decoder for Automatic Picture Transmissions (APT) from satellites NOAA-19, NOAA-18 and NOAA-15. It was developed to improve access to satellite signal decoding for all practitioners.

We are excited to share a new and improved version available here! The new version includes the following updates and additional features:

  • Improved accuracy in decoding and finding sync positions (locates more sync positions than other comparable decoders)
  • Upload a WAV file of any sample rate (no more re-sampling with Audacity!)
  • Option to see the ‘raw’ image without syncing, and to ‘Find the Syncs’
  • Option to Rotate 180 degrees, often useful for viewing images from nighttime passes
  • Go deeper in your analysis: explore Signal Value and Image Value Histograms
  • Upload directly from open-weather apt to the Public Archive

Open-weather apt is co-developed by open-weather with Rectangle (Lizzie Malcolm and Dan Powers), Bill Liles (NQ6Z) and Grayson Earle. We have had a lot of fun testing and experimenting. Please let us know if you have feedback!

Open-Weather APT Web Decoder
Open-Weather APT Web Decoder

Weather Satellite HRPT and LRPT Megaprojection Project Nov 30 – Dec 1

Over on the /r/amateursatellites subreddit, user elmarkodotorg is organizing a group megaprojection project. The Megaprojection Project seeks to create a composite of as much of the earth as possible from weather satellite images captured by hobbyists in a single day, via data from NOAA and Meteor polar-orbiting satellites. They will be accepting HRPT or LRPT data from either Nov 30 or Dec 1 (date yet to be confirmed).

Hobbyists can receive these satellites' LRPT and HRPT signals using an RTL-SDR and appropriate antenna setup.

If you want to contribute, you can join DerekSGC's Discord server, https://sgcderek.github.io, where coordination will be carried out. elmarkodotorg writes that currently, they have confirmed contributors with stations from the west coast of the US all the way over to the western edge of Asia. Currently, they are still hoping to find contributors from the Canary Islands, Turkey, Equatorial Africa, the general area of Indonesia, and Northern Australia. In a more recent Reddit thread, elmarkodotorg provides a link to a Google docs sheet, where you can also register interest.

Recently, on November 16 a test was carried out and they were able to successfully combine 24 images received across the world.

Megaprojection Nov 16 Test: 24 contributors from all over the world submitted HRPT and LRPT images received from their home satellite ground stations.
Megaprojection Nov 16 Test: 24 contributors from all over the world submitted HRPT and LRPT images received from their home satellite ground stations.