I've been making my way through the satellite hobby for the last few years, and recently got ahold of the Discovery Dish and feeds. (Full disclosure, this was a sponsorship for my YouTube channel, but I try to be totally honest and fair about my reviews).

My video on the dish is here: https://youtu.be/UoZXX0ixvow

So, what do I think of it? The performance definitely seems on-par or a little better than DIY options and other setups I've tried. GOES reception is definitely better than I've been able to get with a similar-sized dish and SAWbird+GOES. NOAA and Meteor L-band is great. Metop is so-so, and would likely be better with a steadier hand then mine or a motorized tracker.

For S-band it really outshines anything I've come across in the hobbyist area. The gold standard for S-band seems to be an obscure (in the US) dingus called an MMDS which requires fiddly soldering and takes forever to arrive from sketchy Chinese suppliers. I know they're popular in Europe, but for me the MMDS is more of a hassle than it's worth.

The Inmarsat feed seems a little better than the old hacked GPS antenna. I didn't do as much with this since I had issues with virtual audio cables in Linux. I did play with Iridium a bit today for a different video, and that seems to work quite well, although they don't really advertise that.

H1 feed seems very interesting but I have not played with it enough to compare to the SAWbird+H (which I have, but have also not had time to play with). This is one I'm excited to play with further, as I really want to get into radio astronomy.

The dish itself is a nice size and weight. A small DIY rotor or old security camera pan/tilt mount would handle it just fine. Yes, you could use an old microwave antenna, Wifi dish, etc, but apparently not everyone can find those in the trash as readily as I do! Mine did arrive with a crack in the aluminum, but FedEx treated it pretty poorly so I'm inclined to blame them. The crack doesn't affect anything and closed itself up when I bolted the petals together.

Now of course the downside is the price, they are not super cheap. I've built my ground stations mostly out of trash, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc, so personally I'm probably not the target market for this.

I would say it's for folks who want to get into the hobby and have more money than patience and spare time. If you don't want to spend months rooting through dumpsters, trolling through classifieds, and duct-taping broken equipment together while teaching yourself antenna theory, this is a plug-and-play option. If you're in a small space or have an HOA, or even based out of a vehicle, this thing is light, portable, and can break down for storage. It costs a bit, but it works right out of the box.

Hope this is a helpful review, and I can try to answer any questions!

Two part question, which mode should I use? And, if I set up SatDump like this, will it automatically try both and I'll be covered either way?

https://preview.redd.it/esxvnddgixge1.png?width=802&format=png&auto=webp&s=aab9b14bc0f25fd232dd552c2a9db06c785a54b3

I wish to make a folding prime focus antenna as a college project, but it appears that the material required would be wayyy expensive. Any ideas to reduce the cost down so that any common man can afford this?

Does SatDump CLI update TLEs while running? Or only at launch?

I have a dedicated headless Raspberry Pi running SatDump in CLI autotrack capturing NOAA APT and Meteor LRPT. It’s run for weeks at a time w/out restarting. Wondering if I were to leave it up for months if it would need a method for reloading TLEs.

Thanks!

NOAA 15 LEOSAR downlink at 06:52UTC (02/02/25)

https://preview.redd.it/jplmuxymgoge1.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=91f388a0ff5d46ee47d938ac444dc4551c04d388

Were these signals at the edges an active Epirb? Not seen anything like this before.

Audio recording (SSB)
Audio recording

Jomjom79

can anyone tell me what are the correct settings to create a movie (video) in wxtoimg i tried several times but its comes out as 0 second videoish file which i cant play.
can anyone give me full settings and how to do it please...

https://preview.redd.it/5pczrgpfwnge1.png?width=408&format=png&auto=webp&s=48bd2f9447e0bac554aef9d1034af8f5170fff80

https://preview.redd.it/upalneo01nge1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e777ab3b457c57b7745d9ea1419474516c6fe19

https://preview.redd.it/yot8ohz11nge1.png?width=1917&format=png&auto=webp&s=bc5ef00289ddc8125b4da9a03c0625001ae622c4

When I decode NOAA 15 (APT) it's fine and has all the composites that you would expect from these, but 18 and 19 (when i can get it) only have 5 composites. Is this a problem with me receiving them or are they having issues?

Hello, I was just wondering if I could potentaily recieve signals using my rtl sdr v3 from geostationary satalites, any kind using a standard tv dish. I just what to know if this is possible. Although could I use a diople antenna to detect terrestrial tv signals but that's for r/sdr. Anyway, thanks for any help at all.

Just not hit the UK yet! Trying different directions with the V Dipole indoors. 1m up on a tripod.