How To Receive And Decode L-Band Weather Satellites

People often ask me to do step-by-step how-to videos on some of the satellite projects I show. While I'm still not a real expert on this, I've done my best to show the basics of L-band signals. These can be received with a simple small dish, a Software-Defined Radio and LNA/filter, and some free software.

The process is a little more complicated than VHF satellite reception (which I showed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icADyjm3PBE). However, it's not terribly complex, and the images are a little better than what's available on VHF.

Here are some other great guides that can help with this:
https://usradioguy.com/hrpt-satellite-tracking-and-capture/
https://gist.github.com/JVital2013/ed848cdd92900777eee849dc74186b2c
https://sgcderek.github.io/blog/beginner-hrpt-guide.html
@dereksgc also has some great videos about this on his channel.

Nooelec sells an all-in-one hardware bundle, including antenna, SDR, and LNA. This is everything you need (other than a computer and software) to get started!
https://amzn.to/4ah2WQt

You can also buy parts individually, and make your own antenna. I personally like the RTL-SDR Blog series of Software Defined Radios:
https://amzn.to/4a4AjWI

If you buy an SDR separately or already have one, you will also need a SAWbird GOES LNA:
https://amzn.to/49TtI1k

If you already have a Wifi grid dish, you can modify it like this:
https://usradioguy.com/optimizing-wifi-grid/

If you're building your own dish, the sgcderek link above has some good info. Or you can go REALLY cheap the way I did with some of these projects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM84sSXFL0Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW6ogJS768Y

You can find the right position for your antenna feed on the dish here:
https://www.analyzemath.com/parabola/focus-of-parabola-calculator.html

And you can find 3D printable helical antenna parts here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4980180

Free software that I use includes:
Gpredict: https://oz9aec.dk/gpredict/
SDR++: https://www.sdrpp.org/
SatDump: https://www.satdump.org/

I also use Stellarium, which isn't free and is somewhat flaky, but was the only thing I could find for Android that gives an AR tracking view:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noctuasoftware.stellarium_free&hl=en_US&gl=US

Websites I use for satellite finding and tracking include:
https://www.n2yo.com/
https://www.satdump.org/Satellite-List/

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