Receiving Weather Images from NOAA Weather Satellites with an RTL-SDR Blog V4 and Multipurpose Dipole Antenna Kit
Over on YouTube Baltic Lab has uploaded a video showing how he was able to successfully use an RTL-SDR Blog V4 and the included multipurpose dipole antenna kit to receive images from polar-orbiting NOAA weather satellites.
In the video, Baltic Lab shows how to orient the dipole antenna in a "V-Dipole" shape which optimizes it for receiving from satellites. He also shows how to use a VNA to confirm that the telescopic elements on the dipole are extended to the correct length, noting that he was able to achieve a VSWR of less than 1.2 between the target frequencies of 135 to 138.1 MHz, with a near perfect match at 136.5 MHz.
He then demonstrates receiving the NOAA APT signals with his laptop, and successfully recovering the weather satellite image.
Wow, another outdated tutorial with obsolete software… not worthy to be posted here.
Troll type language here.
As the author of many tutorials, I can say he does have a point: the tutorial is practically useless. WXtoIMG is a very obsolete software that has not been maintained in years, has several serious bugs and a large swath of vulnerabilities. Why make a tutorial at all, if you’re going to use such a software that should never, EVER be installed on a computer connected to the Internet?
Also there is absolutely ZERO need to own a VNA, nor to perform any measurement on the V dipole, even if it’s off by many centimeters it won’t affect the reception at all.
It just wastes everyone’s times, they will try to follow these instructions, then the software will crash, they will ruin their satellite pass and then come to Reddit or Discord etc. and ask “why didn’t it work?”
And I have to explain over and over again why they shouldn’t follow these tutorials but instead the good ones that have been stickied in the amsat reddit and on this website too. You see the problem?