In the Summer of 2025, we lost all the remaining NOAA APT satellites. Although I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get weather images off the satellites, it was nice to hear the rythmic tones from NOAA-15, 18, and 19 on my scanner as they flew overhead. Now that they are gone, it motivates me to dust off my QFH antenna, and 137 MHz preamp, and try my hand at the Meteor M2 satellites. Then I will probally have to get a Discovery Dish, and expand to other types of satellites.
Looking for a signal at 137.900 MHz for M2-3
For details on the timing and how to capture and process the Meteor signals:
Research on the Meteor Satellites
2025/11/20 _ After a few passes of M2-3 testing, seeing the only decent passes for my setup are the ones that start in the SSE direction. This pass started at SSE 160 degrees. The image was saved as 'shortwave IR'
2025/11/12 _ Got something for M2-3! Using the same setup as yesterday, but in a different location and pass (Starting at SSE 151 degrees)! The V-Dipole actually worked really well. It can be held by hand, raised, lowered, twisted, etc until the signal is strongest. First, I actually started to see the four dots of the OQPSK Constellation! Even the Viterbi and Deframer Synced! From n2yo.com, the Starting Azimuth was SSE 151 degrees and the Max Elevation was 51 degrees (I should have recorded the start, max, and stop Azimuths). I am going to keep track of the passes that work well for my locations, and try to dial in the elements to get better satellite images.
2025/11/11 _ Using a small 120 degree V-Dipole antenna, NooElec SAWbird+, RTL-SDR V4, and SatDump. The signal is better, but not getting it to process anything in SatDump yet.
2025/09/19 _ Using an Arrow 1/4 Wave Ground Plane GP146 Antenna and a
RTL-SDR V4 feeding into GQRX on MacOS, got to see my first evidence of a signal on 137.9 MHz. Interestingly you can see the signal faiding from bottom to top in this screen shot:
2025/09/02 _ Used my PortaPack H4M to check for signals between 137-138MHz durring a Meteor M2-3 pass... nothing:
Well there is a faint signal, but it was there before the pass too.
2025/09/01 _ First attempt at detecting a signal from Meteor M2-3. I used my old Uniden BC200XLT scanner and tracked the satelite on NWYO.com. No Signals were detected.
After dong some research, it appears this result is expected. Unlike the analog NOAA APT satellites. Meteor satellites transmit a wide digital signal over 100kHz wide. Because of this, a conventional scanner like theBC200XLT won't produce a recognizable signal.
