It is with great sadness to announce, to the weather satellite community and X-Band users, the two week mark of the soon to be decommissioned Suomi-NPP weather satellite.

200 hours of data collected with a Noelec antenna and Raspberry Pi ground station using Satdump then post processed on a linux workstation with ImageMagick, Sanchez, ffmpeg and 2500 lines of hand written shell scripts. Each video frame is composited from an infra red image from each satellite, a visible light image, a daytime underlay image, and a night underlay image. Interpolation is used to insert missing data and for smoothing of the final output.

AVHRR 221 false color product
SatDump 1.2.2

V-dipole, Nooelec NESDR SMArt v5 SDR

Such a nice day - decided no borders or cities or overlays - just the planet.

Elektro-L 3 has been drifting west from 76°E since September, with 14.5°W mentioned as a possible new position to replace Elektro-L2.

According to the latest TLE available in my tracking app, it has now propagated to around 31.6°W, well past 14.5°W. However, the public TLE data appears to be several days old, so its actual current position may be different if a maneuver has happened since then.

I’m following this because if L3 eventually settles at 14.5°W and its L-band LRIT/HRIT downlinks are reactivated, it could be very interesting for weather satellite reception in Western Europe.

Has anyone seen a newer TLE or any confirmation of a recent maneuver?

hello guys,

i was recently trying to get sstv images from UmKa-1, i received two image on the first day, but then i got absolutely nothing in the next two days. AMSAT shows its supposed to be transmitting SSTV till November 11 2026. If any of you guys are experiencing the same issue, or know why it isnt transmitting sstv pls lemme know.

thanks!

I received Elektro-L 2 GGAK on a SAWbird+ GOES, 3D printed t0nito helicone antenna and RTL-SDR V4. The signal on the waterfall showed very healthy, 13 dB SNR spikes, but it seemed to get some modulation errors as i got an inconsistent 6 dB SNR sometimes (most of the time dropped to 0), the BPSK constellation looked good, but never locked or decoded everything. Is this a known error with Elektro-L 2 GGAK? I saw a live SEM data graph from SatDump Elektro-L 2, but no data since 8/14/2026

Could i receive Elektro-L 3 on the t0nito 3D printed helicone, SAWbird+ GOES and RTL-SDR V4? I know it isn't that big of a dish, but i did get around 8 dB average SNR on Meteor and 6 dB on Metop-C, but i did wonder if LRIT or GGAK might be possible to get a lock and receive

I finally decided to receive from a better location with my helicone antenna, and that was a great decision getting coverage down into the southern tip of the mediterranean and up way past Iceland, but lost the signal at 7° elevation just before Greenland. This pass was received from Belgium, at a 65° peak elevation

im no expert in reddit, but reddit recommended me to post this in this channel,

here is the link if you like to try it: Orbital Link Explorer — LEO/MEO Route Simulation

I spent the last couple of weeks learning how to use my very basic di-pole setup. There’s a parking garage 10 minutes from home with an amazing high-up view of the horizon. I managed to get this on my second official attempt. I lost connection a couple of times, which is why there are the big gaps. Not sure if it’s because I’m in a city area with some buildings near me or something else interfering. But I’m definitely trying again soon!

METEOR-M N2-4 2026/10/12 11:08 UTC Nooelec NEsdr v5, diy QFH, Satdump

Hi all, I'm an indie dev and I built an Android satellite tracker with pass planning in mind.

- Live radar (azimuth/elevation) and 3D globe with ground tracks

- Real-time Doppler shift for VHF, UHF and L-band

- Telemetry per satellite: altitude, velocity, slant range, footprint, signal delay, Maidenhead grid

- Orbit time prediction, +-60 min

- TLEs from Celestrak, refreshed in the background, with a bundled snapshot for offline use

- No ads, no account, location stays on the device

The core radar is free. Doppler, AR sky and orbit prediction are in an optional Pro subscription, I want to be upfront about that.

I'm looking for feedback from people who actually work satellites: what is missing for you? Rotator control, TLE import, pass alerts?

Hey all, got my first Meteor M2-3 image last night (night pass so just IR). Pretty stoked it worked at all, but I lost a big chunk of the pass.

Setup: RTL-SDR Blog dipole kit as a V (53 cm, 120°, flat, pointed south) on a chair in the garden, Wideband LNA V2 between the antenna and the Airspy R2, Airspy at 2.5 MSPS, SatDump.
Pass went up to 59 degrees. I had a good lock between about 30 and 45 degrees on the way up, then it dropped out completely near the top and only came back for a few seconds on the way down. The live output was empty too, I only got images after running the .cadu through offline processing.

Is the dropout at high elevation the known M2-3 antenna thing, or is it my setup? And is a QFH worth building, or should I get a filtered LNA first?

Thanks!

LRPT capture
AVHRR 3a21 False Color Product
RTL-SDR blog V-dipole from kit
Nooelec NESDR SMArt v5
No LNA
SatDump 2.0.0-alpha
“Fill_missing” on

A day or two ago I noticed Channel 4 (IR channel) was producing garbage/grey on a previous capture for this satellite and I notice today it’s switched back to channels 1-3 (visible light only channels).