r/amateursatellites

Equipment (listed in order of connection):

• 137 MHz V-dipole
• 137 MHz SAW filter before the LNA
• External LNA with bias tee
• 5-meter 5D-FB coaxial cable
• RTL-SDR Blog V4
• 2-meter USB extension cable
• Laptop

I have never seen or heard a signal like this before. Normally, METEOR transmits a relatively uniform signal that sounds like noise, but here there is an obvious tonal modulation. I can't figure out what it is or how to decode it. SatDump doesn't give me anything useful, and I'm not sure which mode I should select.

METEOR-M N2-4 2026/08/18 22:22 UTC Nooelec NEsdr v5, diy QFH, Satdump

Since i live in the mountains, i had to spend days chasing high-elevation passes to get some usable imagery, and today i finally got a daytime pass that was good enough and not during my work hours! It's definitely funny how you can easily understand where the peaks of the mountain is based on the missing data

I have some questions, i've been using this antenna for 3 weeks and i've recived good meteor m2-3 and m2-4 images with Satdump, but, i dont know how to use it, i mean, i've tried different places and positions and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. I've fail to "connect" the meteors with elevations of 80 degrees and clear sky, with the antena 53 cm long each leg and horizontal. Someone who has the same antenna can give me advice? Thanks. I have a sdr v5. I'm from Spain so excuse me my english 😅

They are the size of a tennis court, 50 by 50 feet.

this was definetly completely optional but why tf not
and i can listen to FM radio with this too
crazy that this works without the lna—mine broke

i’ll put the output picture in the comments meteor m2-4 is still above me rn

Just got started with this hobby and received my first successful images from the Meteor satellites the other day. I’m quite happy with the result since I didn’t expect to get much using a hand-tracked V dipole and a cheap LNA in my garden. The signal from Meteor M2-4 (2nd image) seemed noticeably better than from M2-3 (1st image) despite being a lower pass, though this may have just been due to a difference in nearby obstructions.

METEOR-M N2-4 2026/08/13 22:30 UTC Nooelec NEsdr v5, diy QFH, recorded with sdr++, processed with Meteordemod

Hi,I just wanted to share a image I received from HADES-SA which is a pocket satellite made by AMSAT-EA.

It took me a while to understand how to decode ssdv and work the satellite as the satellite only passes super late at night for me.The image at top left shows us the curvature of earth,the bright light is sun/sunlight below horizon and in the lower middle it's slightly visible is Arabian peninsula.

Hello,
My university team (me and friends from B.tech EEE dept) are finalizing a funded pitch to build a permanent ground station in Chennai, India. The objective is to capture and decode live C-band weather imagery and telemetry directly from INSAT-3DS (~4.7 GHz).

Before we send the BoM for funding pitch, our mentor recommended posting a sanity check on different forums and subreddits.

We are in SRMIST KTR (main campus), chennai trying for INSAT-3DS

The Architecture:
(since the satellite dish will be at the roof pointing at the sattelite, and the project lab is 2 floors down)

• Antenna: 1.8m Prime Focus Mesh Dish on a non-penetrating roof mount with concrete ballast.
• RF Front End: C-Band feedhorn with a scalar ring feeding into a standard C-Band LNA.
• Digitization (On-Roof): Airspy R2 or HackRF One connected to an Intel NUC (or Raspberry Pi 5).
• Enclosure: All electronics housed in a waterproof enclosure, mounted behind the dish for shade. We are thinking of using waterproof nylon cable glands.
• Data Transport: Cat6 Ethernet running two floors down to the lab.
• Software Pipeline: SatDump running in server mode on the roof PC, streaming the 10 MSPS IQ data to the lab PC for QPSK demodulation and decoding.
• The specs of the PC getting the data is not finalized yet but we were considering atleast intel i5(or higher), 12gb ddr4 RAM (or higher and cheaper) and 512 gb storage hdd (or more)

Link Budget Estimate:

• Target Satellite: INSAT-3DS (74°E)
• Distance: ~36,000 km
• Frequency: ~4.7 GHz
• Estimated Link Margin: ~10 dB (assuming a 1.8m mesh dish at ~55% efficiency).

Where we need your critique:

1. C-Band Interference: Chennai is a major coastal city with local radar and heavy 5G deployment. Will a standard C-band LNA get saturated, and should we budget for a dedicated cavity bandpass filter before the LNA?
2. Thermals: Chennai ambient temperatures hit 40°C (104°F). Even in the shade of the dish, will an Intel NUC or Pi 5 thermal-throttle while processing a continuous 10 MSPS QPSK stream inside a sealed box with only a breather vent?
3. Mechanical Alignment: Any practical tips for perfectly centering a feedhorn on a multi-petal mesh dish without access to professional laser alignment tools?

We appreciate any blunt feedback or teardowns of this plan before we spend institutional money. Thanks.