Nooelec GOES Weather Satellite RTL-SDR Bundle - Includes NESDR SMArTee XTR Software Defined Radio, & Everything Else Needed to Receive LRIT, HRIT & HRPT Satellite Weather Images Directly from Space!

TL;DR: Equipment is good. Simple to setup. If you use a RPi3 don't expect to run much else as it'll throttle (I've tried different RPi3's, occurs on all) due to power draw. Pi build time: About an hour. Mainly downloading libaries/compiler/compiling goestools. Guide link below. Kit build time: 20 minutes. I build the Raspberry Pi 3 the night before I received the kit. I followed this guide for the most part: https://gist.github.com/lxe/c1756ca659c3b78414149a3ea723eae2#file-goes16-rtlsdr-md The kit itself is pretty simple. It comes in pieces which overlap and bolt together. I had to look at pictures here to make sure I was doing it right as I didn't have any directions. I get it, only 8 bolt/nuts, but I didn't want to mess it up. The coax cable is.. impressive. Incredibly thick, reminds me of pulling fiber. Holds it's shape for sure as getting the bend out of it was a task. It makes the little SMA connectors look tiny. Be prepared to have to drill some large holes if you plan to route it into a house. I trust it much more than cheap, thin cables found on Amazon. I tried it and some cheap coax and didn't see really any difference.. but I feel like it'll weather better outside. The GOES+ saw filter is not waterproof and I wish it was. I've managed seal it inside a container and wrapped that container with reflective tape in an attempt to reduce solar heat (Florida.) This is my second filter from NooElec and I believe it's working fine. I'm getting 80-90 VIT on this setup. The SDR works as described. Be cautious when planning where you will install it. Without a cool location/active cooling the SDR will likely overheat. Just playing with it outside, using my shed to shelter it from the sun, my VIT went from 90 to 400 over 10 minutes. Moving it back indoors resolved this issue. Ultimately this is a step forward on my goal to build a proper weather monitoring setup. I'm currently monitoring weather balloon launches and now downloading weather satellite data without an Internet connection. Starlink aside as a future Internet service, I live in a location where weather and hurricanes are a concern. Loss of connectivity is an absolute possibility and having the ability to gather weather data offline is a pretty cool idea.

This bundle works like a charm. There is one drawback but I'll discuss that in a minute. Antenna assembly is pretty much straight forward. The LMR 400 coax is big and heavy but that's not a problem. It just takes patience to get it straight. One basic firmware program is needed to get it working after the antenna is aimed. Additional coloring programs are available also. The software is available on the Internet and easy to find. An antenna aiming program, again, on the Internet is very helpful in aiming the antenna. The weak point for me was the mounting hardware for the antenna. It's a 90 degree bracket that does very little for fine tuning elevation. It has little to no adjustment for skew if one is in the area that calls for skew. My area for GOES 16 called for -25 degrees. You can't get that out of a right angle bracket. I found a satellite TV mounting bracket that had the swivel head that allowed me to get that -25 degree skew. It also allowed me to fine tune elevation and azimuth. With an adjustable mounting bracket one can adjust and watch values change until the sweet spot is found. The LAN has an LED that goes in the direction of the Pi, not the antenna. Weather proofing is a must as the LAN has a USB port on the end for injecting power. Fortunately the port isn't needed but it does need to be protected from the weather. Remains a mystery to me why the port was designed to be open to the elements and orientated skyward. Overall, it's a great bundle that works and gives great satisfaction when that first packet is decoded and written and becomes an image.

I've been wanting to copy the geosynchronous GOES satellite for quite a years. Gathering the receiver components and amp and cable seemed easy. Finding a dish and modifying a feed to work at 1700 MHz didn't. I a wanted something ready made for that Call me lazy, although antennas don't usually challenge me. This package comes with everything you need but one piece (more on that in a moment) and went together fast and easily. You need a steady base that won't move around and a pole that is relatively straight up and down. A level will be useful. At my location, the satellite is at 45 degrees in the sky, and in a clear direction, and I felt pretty good. I first built a Raspberry PI 4 and installed the GOES tools software, which takes the signal from the SDR connected to the antenna, demodulates the data, and renders that data into files (images, text, etc.). I was able to have this up and running in very short order, and the image is one of my first "false color" images, which are sent every 30 minutes, and are quite beautiful. Everything was fine till a rainstorm, which caused some water to infiltrate my SAWbird amplifer outside (remember the thing I said was missing? It's a waterproof enclosure of some type for that device, since it must install at the antenna). Once I dried it off, it appeared to be no worse for wear, but I could not get signal to return, even when I could see the signal from the satellite on other devices. After 3 days of work troubleshooting, it turned out to be nothing to do with this kit, but with the GOESTools software, which apparently decided not work work anymore after a rebuild. Once I tried the software from USA Satcom (which is not free, but worth the cost for peace of mind and utility IMO) I realized that I continued to have strong signals from the Nooelec dish, and have been happily receiving images again. During this time, i worked with Danielle of Nooelec support, who was very response and patient. This is a good company with strong customer centricity. Moral of the story is this is a great value, includes everything you need (except that little waterproof enclosure for the Sawbird amp/filter) and works very reliably. Coupled with (working) software, it offers a fascinating way to see all sorts of weather and no-weather images from the GOES satellites. Worth the price.

This unit comes with everything you need to receive pictures from GOES-16 and GOES-17. I have personally pointed the dish at both and received absolutely incredible pictures. I captured the full disk of earth in different wavelengths and saw pictures of the fires in California, weather updates, and assembled them into a video of Hurricane Ida slamming into Louisiana. Some assembly is required, but there is a link to a guide provided with the unit and multiple third-party guides online for setting it up. I ended up wiring it to a Raspberry Pi and using goestools and Sanchez (both on Github) to decode and process the images. Each satellite sends about 550 MB and hundreds of files in an hour, but the 5424x5424 images are worth it. You might even get images from the old GOES-15 sat and the japanese Himawari 8 satellite, which orbits over Australia and relays some of its imagery through the GOES satellites as well. Words of advice: 1. The dish is quite focused, so you need to really dial it in, but the DishPointer site was a great help with helping me find the satellite. 2. I would not worry too much about precise skew/rotation of the dish. While it is necessary to get the right horizontal azimuth and vertical elevation angles, the polarization is not as critical. This unit comes with a mounting unit that is only capable of rotating in 45 degree increments; thus in the worst case you'll be off by 22 degrees. Even being off by 45 degrees only means a loss of 3 db which is bad but recoverable, so I'm confident in the 45 degree precision and I'm not pursuing a replacement mount. 3. It is critical that the front reflector be vertical, as shown in the attached pictures and shown in the guides. The reflector can be upside down and its fine, but it cannot be at a 90 degree angle or it will be severely out of phase with the linear polarization coming from the satellite. 4. The low-noise amplifier (LNA) unit is necessary, as I didn't have any luck when I wired the SDR directly to the short piece of coax coming out of the dish. 5. The LMR-400 cable is surprisingly stiff and clumsy, but it can be looped or stretched out and shouldn't be a problem. 6. I would also recommend waterproofing the LNA, since it has an unused USB port that faces upwards. I'm going to use some electrical tape I think. But really, these are all minor things, and the unit works very well out of the box. You'll get some amazing pictures, no matter where you are!

This is a great bit of kit to get you started capturing LRIT / HRIT from GOES satellites! First off, not a big fan of the included mounting bracket, making fine adjustments to the alignment can be finicky, however DIY mounting is feasible so its not that big of a deal. The included LMR400 cable is a long chunky cable, I probably would've been happy with half the length they provided, not an issue. As others said, just takes patience to straighten it out and a bit of space to wrestle with it. The rest of the kit is working perfect. Weatherproofing is essentially not-included. There's not really a one-size-fits-all solution to how people will set this up so that's fine in my opinion. Once you buy it, its an electronic device, protect it as you see fit. I ran with just electrical tape for a bit before I got a "outdoor power cord protector" from another Amazon order and used that to protect the SAWbird, another waterproof project box for the Raspberry Pi 4B+ hosting goestools with the SMArTee SDR plugged in. Added two additional temperature sensors to monitor the temperature inside and outside the box just for fun. An important thing to remember, the sun can affect your signal to noise ratio. It's a noisy ball of fire in the sky. If you're struggling to get good alignment during the day, wait for a cool clear night for your best opportunity. Once you're under 100 VIT, you are set. My VIT is stable around 75-80 VIT but that increases to around 200VIT during the day when the sun is high in the sky. Even with that signal degradation, if you are in good alignment with the satellite, you will be okay.

This is not a quickie project, be prepared to tinker. It is pretty cool though. 1. For a permanent install, you will NEED an SMA lightning arrestor, ground wire, and ground rod - unless you like the idea of bringing Thor into your house... I used this one from Amazon (CAREFUL, SMA is fragile to too much abuse!): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K25Y1JW 2. For the Sawbird LNA, you will need a waterproof housing. I purchased this one off Amazon, and some 1-3/8 conduit straps which screwed directly to the back with the included screws (My antenna mast is chain link top-rail, 1-3/8" galvanized steel): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RPNWD47. The Sawbird and the Lightning arrestor BARELY fit inside - had to finagle the cable glands to get it to work. 3. For the cable glands on that box, it was necessary to bore out the glands to 9/16" to fit the substantial cable ends that come on the LM400 cable included. Once that was done, they fit perfectly. That cable is robust, but the connectors are fragile. USE CABLE TIES! Torquing the cable will break SMA connectors. Just the weight of that cable might... 4. DO NOT USE A PHONE to locate the satellite, use a real high quality lensatic compass and the info from Dishpointer. With my phone, and Satellite Director 2.6.4, I was about 5 degrees off on the azimuth, so much so that it gave me bad signal-to-noise. Once I re-set the azimuth with my lensensatic compass, I got real images and data-dumps. About doubled my SNR (signat-to-noise). 5. I used a plumb-bob on a protractor to set the elevation, but "Clinometer" app on my Android phone was easier and gave decimal degrees. Held the phone against the LNB boom. 6. Skew sucks. My location called for 30.1 degrees - all you get is horizontal, 45, and 90. I picked 45 because it is closest, but the mount REALLY should be redesigned!!! I have it installed on my PC running ZorinOS 17.2 (Ubuntu fork) - Satdump was ok to install - nothing too crazy but Linux dependencies are always an issue. I used "DeepAI" to tell me what the error messages meant, and how to resolve them. Take it slow, Google is your friend. Tinker. I am happy!

This is a quality kit! The antenna is very easy to assemble and setup. Connecting the antenna to the preamp - that to the provided cable and the cable to the receiver is again easy. I mounted the antenna on an old piece of pipe for testing, temporarily mounting the pipe to an available awning support and got busy downloading a free copy of SatDump (in my case - for Windows). From there it was just a matter of paying attention (RTFM) to verify drivers were correctly installed and that the software was configured correctly. A little looking up of my exact location and that of both GOES-East (now GOES-19) and GOES-West (Now GOES-18) satellites allowed the correct azimuth and elevation angles to be applied. I was amazed that signals were immediately present and began generating images! I haven’t yet applied the correct skew angle to the antenna, but still get very adequate S/N reception. In summary - this is a quality kit and a bargain at that!

Receiving your own GOES satellite images from a backyard dish is amazing! I've been wanting to get a dish for a long time, however all of the projects I've seen have been with a TV dish which is tuned for the *wrong* frequency for GOES images. Yes, it is somewhat close and there are hacks to make it a bit better - but when this bundle came along, with a dish specifically meant for weather satellite frequency plus the electronics included, I could not resist. Oh - and of course the Amazon free shipping, free no hassle return policy really helped! This was my first-ever dish of any sort, and there are definitely some things to learn. Search online for "rtl-sdr goes nooelec bundle" and "usradioguy goes imagery reception" and "goes nooelec" on site:blogspot for some informative setup guides and tips. I struggled a bit to initially get my dish setup and a bit of googling was required. This was before I contacted Nooelec support. As it turns out, their support is just awesome, and within 24 hours of my message, they not only responded to me - but also added some additional details on setup both here on Amazon and on the Nooelec web site. Great support really makes a difference. Once I had the dish in place, in no time at all I had my Raspberry Pi 3B downloading near-realtime, full disk images of the earth! Note there are *two* processes that need to run: the image-receiving "goesrecv" app and the subscriber "goesproc" that takes the received data and converts it to images. There are many different types of images to receive. It's all about the config files for these two apps. My only quip is regarding the use of the phrase "everything you need". You'll need a computer of some sort, typically a Raspberry Pi. You'll also need something to mount this to - such as a tripod, or in my case, I bought an antenna mount (search Amazon for B07PXK78MT) - I got one of the used ones and it works just fine. Also - as noted in another review, there's no waterproofing for the electronics, so unless hidden under the overhang / eve of your roof, the electronics will get wet. Further, there's no grounding strap - so when mounted to the house, additional wire and hardware is needed (search internet for "national electrical code satellite dish"). All that aside, for what you *do* get, this is an amazing kit. Solid 5 stars.

I bought this kit with the intention of receiving signals sent by the GEO-KOMPSAT-2A satellite. It works great with no problems, I am able to receive transmissions at a solid 17 SNR. However, adjusting the setup is where I ran into issues. Elevation and azimuth adjustments were no problem, just loosen the bolts a little, and you’re good to go. But the skew adjustment was an absolute pain. Adjusting the skew requires you to remove the entire antenna from its mount, as shown in the photos. When you remove these bolts, not only does the dish come off, but the boom detaches from the dish as well. This means that when adjusting the skew, you have to keep the boom upright while simultaneously holding the dish in place, almost impossible if you can’t put your hand in front of it without losing the signal. The fact that I was installing this on a slanted roof in 34°C heat might have added to the frustration, but nevertheless, the skew adjustment should not be this difficult to rotate.

Very easy to assemble and set up-- pretty much the same as a tv satellite dish. Fortunately, my Longitude is close enough to that of the Satellite, that skew and polarisation wasn't important. Just had to point the dish south and match the elevation to my latitude. Works just fine, and now that I have a permanent mount and my VIT sits around 60-100 all day, except when the sun passes behind the dish and satellite, which is to be expected. It even survived 160kph sustained winds,, from the south, right on the face of the dish. VERY impressed with that

Because of the way I wanted to set things up this required climbing a learning curve for me (eg re-learning Linux because I wanted to use a Raspberry Pi.) like many projects that require a lot of open-source software, getting going required a lot of googling. YMMV, if you’re able to just hook it up to a Windows machine or a Mac. The documents are a little scant, but adequate. I had a glitch with the receiver, but Kayla in customer support was excellent, and got it sorted out with me via email. I am going to have fun with this. Highly recommended.

Well packaged, easy to assemble and get working. You need a good mount for the antenna, although you can still receive a signal by holding the antenna.

Great product. Went together easily. I have a Raspberry Pi 4 I use with it but I find you really need a beefier computer than the Pi to get better and faster storage and processing.