11What's overhead: weather satellites, the ISS and Starlink

The short version: For decades anyone with a simple antenna could pull weather pictures straight from NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites on 137 MHz, but that era ended in 2025 when NOAA shut down its last legacy satellites. NOAA's geostationary GOES satellites still watch the Americas from a fixed spot, with GOES-19 taking over as GOES East in April 2025. The International Space Station carries a ham radio station that sometimes sends slow-scan TV pictures on 145.800 MHz, receivable on a handheld radio. And overhead at a few hundred kilometers, SpaceX's Starlink is the largest constellation in orbit, now authorized by the FCC for 15,000 second-generation satellites, some of which can talk directly to ordinary phones.

Can I still pick up NOAA weather satellite pictures?

What you see: Old tutorials showing a homemade antenna, a cheap USB radio dongle and a grainy black-and-white strip of cloud over the East Coast.

Not from NOAA's legacy satellites. NOAA's older polar-orbiting satellites, known as POES, sent pictures down through what Amateur Radio Newsline called "their 137 MHz APT transmissions."¹⁸² APT, Automatic Picture Transmission, is an analog image signal, and for years it was the classic first project for hobbyists with a software-defined radio (see hobby radio).

The shutdown came in 2025:¹⁸³

NOAA's earlier plan had NOAA-15 going first, on August 12, and NOAA-19 on August 19; the final order was reversed.¹⁸³ Ahead of the shutdown, RTL-SDR.com reported that the satellites would stay in orbit in a safe state "with the transmitters shut down."¹⁸⁴ NOAA's notice to users was direct: "Direct users should make plans to discontinue use of POES data."¹⁸²

So the satellites are still up there, and you can still see them pass on a tracking app. They have gone quiet.

Russia's Meteor-M satellites still broadcast near the same frequencies. As of 2026, the World Meteorological Organization's OSCAR database lists Meteor-M N2-3, launched June 27, 2023, with LRPT (Low Rate Picture Transmission) downlinks at 137.1 and 137.9 MHz giving "real-time availability of selected images."¹⁸⁵ LRPT is digital rather than analog, and RTL-SDR.com has published a tutorial on receiving Meteor-M LRPT images with a low-cost USB radio dongle.¹⁸⁶

What is GOES, and why does it never move?

What you see: The satellite loop on a TV weather forecast, with clouds sweeping across the whole of North America.

Those loops usually come from GOES, NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. A geostationary satellite orbits once a day, matching Earth's spin, so from the ground it seems to hang in one place. That needs a very high orbit.

GOES-19 became operational as GOES East on April 7, 2025. It sits over 75.2 degrees west, about 22,236 miles (35,786 km) up, and replaced GOES-16, which became a backup. GOES-19 carries a lightning mapper and a coronagraph called CCOR-1, which watches the Sun.¹⁸⁷

Because GOES is so far away, picking up its data directly takes a dish and more equipment than the old APT setups needed.

NOAA's HRIT/EMWIN service is the usual starting point. It is a direct-to-user broadcast from the GOES-R series at 1694.1 MHz in the L-band, at a net 400 kbit/s, carrying National Weather Service warnings, charts and satellite imagery. NOAA says it can be received with a VSAT dish under 2 meters (at least 1.0 m at 10 degrees elevation or higher), a low-noise block-down converter, a satellite receiver and decoding software, with no internet connection needed.¹⁸⁸

Can I hear the International Space Station?

What you see: A bright, steady point of light crossing the sky in a few minutes, and a ham radio friend who says they've talked to it.

The ISS carries an amateur radio station run by ARISS, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. ARISS "lets students experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly with crew members," through scheduled school contacts. It is backed by national amateur radio societies and AMSAT (amateur satellite) organizations in Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the US.¹⁸⁹

This guide covers listening only, and the easiest way in is an SSTV event.

ARISS lists the station's call signs as NA1SS (US), RS0ISS (Russia) and DP0ISS, OR4ISS and IR0ISS (Europe), adding that others may come into use as the station and crew change; the voice downlink is 145.80 MHz worldwide.¹⁹⁰ Talking back is another matter: in the US, an amateur station may transmit only under the control of a person named in an amateur license grant or authorized for reciprocal operation, under 47 CFR 97.5.¹⁹¹ Other countries license amateurs through their own regulators, such as Ofcom in the UK, ISED in Canada, ACMA in Australia and MIC in Japan.

What is SSTV from the ISS, and how do people receive it?

What you see: Social media posts of odd, slightly smeared pictures with "ARISS" in the corner, made by people in their backyards.

SSTV, slow-scan television, sends a still picture as a sequence of audio tones over an ordinary voice radio channel. ARISS runs occasional SSTV events, when the station transmits a series of images that anyone can capture.

Two documented events give the pattern:

• June 21-26, 2021: 145.800 MHz FM, in a mode called PD120. ARRL said the signal "should be receivable on a handheld radio with a quarter-wave whip."¹⁹²
• December 16-19, 2023: marking "the 40th anniversary of amateur radio in human spaceflight." 145.800 MHz plus or minus 3 kHz to allow for Doppler shift (the frequency appears to slide as the station races toward you and then away), again in PD-120 mode, with times "subject to change due to crew availability."¹⁹³

In practice, people tune a scanner or handheld to 145.800 MHz FM during a pass, record the audio, and run it through free SSTV decoding software, which turns the tones back into a picture. A pass lasts only minutes, so a tracking app to know when the ISS will be above the horizon helps.

Recent events have mostly kept that pattern. ARISS press releases list SSTV on 145.800 MHz in PD120 from October 3 to about October 9, 2025, marking the anniversary of Sputnik-1's launch, and from November 12 to 19, 2025, recognizing Scouting and the station's 25th year. A May 8-12, 2026 event broke it, using 437.55 MHz (plus or minus Doppler shift) in a mode called Robot36,¹⁹⁴ so check each announcement for the frequency.

How many Starlink satellites are there?

What you see: A trail of satellites moving in a line after sunset, or a flat white Starlink dish on a roof or RV.

More than 10,000 in total by early 2026 (details below), and climbing. The FCC first authorized 7,500 second-generation (Gen2) Starlink satellites in December 2022, less than SpaceX's request for nearly 30,000, at altitudes of 525, 530 and 535 km (about 330 miles).¹⁹⁵

On January 9, 2026, the FCC approved "an additional 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites," for a total of 15,000.¹⁹⁶ According to Broadband Breakfast, more than 5,000 Gen2 satellites were in orbit as of early January 2026, citing astronomer Jonathan McDowell, and the new order allows altitudes as low as 340 km (about 210 miles).¹⁹⁷

Those counts cover Gen2 only. For the whole constellation, EarthSky reported on March 22, 2026 that "there are now more than 10,000 Starlinks orbiting Earth," after a March 17 launch of 25 more, and pointed readers to Jonathan McDowell's regularly updated totals.¹⁹⁸ Tracker sites disagree with each other, so treat any single headline number with care.

What frequencies does Starlink use?

What you see: Nothing, unless you own a dish.

The 2022 authorization covered "frequencies in the Ku- and Ka-band,"¹⁹⁵ both microwave bands. The January 2026 order widened that to operations across the Ku-, Ka-, V-, E- and W-bands.¹⁹⁶

The new bands granted in 2026, per Broadband Breakfast:¹⁹⁷

These are very short waves, millimeters to a couple of centimeters long. They carry a lot of data but need a clear view of the sky, which is why a dish under a tree or beside a tall building struggles.

How can my phone text from space?

What you see: A phone with no bars showing "SAT" or a satellite icon, and a text that still goes through from a trailhead.

That is direct-to-cell: satellites that talk to ordinary mobile phones using mobile-network spectrum, with no dish. The FCC's January 2026 order covers "direct-to-cell connectivity outside the United States and supplemental coverage within the U.S."¹⁹⁶

In the US, T-Mobile offers T-Satellite, built with SpaceX. According to a June 2025 report, it was set to launch July 23, 2025 with texting (SMS), plus picture messages and audio clips on Android, with data for select apps from October 1, 2025. At the time it used 657 Starlink direct-to-cell satellites, covered more than 500,000 square miles with little or no cell coverage, and was offered to AT&T and Verizon customers with compatible phones for $10 a month.¹⁹⁹

The service is aimed at places towers don't reach.

As of July 2026, SatelliteInternet.com reported that T-Satellite launched commercially in July 2025 and costs $10 a month as an add-on, or comes included on T-Mobile's Experience Beyond plan; AT&T and Verizon customers can add it with an unlocked, compatible phone and an open eSIM slot. Features then included texting, location sharing and data for apps such as WhatsApp, Google Maps, AllTrails and AccuWeather, and T-Mobile customers on any plan could text 911 for free.²⁰⁰

In Boston

GOES East sits over 75.2 degrees west,¹⁸⁷ only a few degrees west of Boston's longitude, so from Boston it hangs in the southern sky, nearly due south.

The ISS and Starlink pass over Boston as they do over most populated places, and the ISS's 145.800 MHz downlink¹⁹³ can be heard from a city park as well as a backyard, given a clear stretch of sky toward the pass. Tall buildings downtown block low passes in the same way they block GPS satellites.

For the cell networks that direct-to-cell is designed to supplement, see cellular.

Elsewhere in the world

ARISS is an international effort, backed by amateur radio and AMSAT groups in Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the US,¹⁸⁹ and the 2023 SSTV event guide quoted here came from AMSAT-UK.¹⁹³ SSTV events are receivable wherever the ISS passes.

Starlink's direct-to-cell service is authorized by the FCC for use outside the US as well as for supplemental coverage inside it.¹⁹⁶ Abroad, it depends on a local partner carrier and national regulator, so check what your carrier offers.

GOES East's position over 75.2 degrees west¹⁸⁷ keeps it over the Americas. Other regions are watched by their own geostationary satellites: a Japan Meteorological Agency table (as of December 2022) lists EUMETSAT's Meteosat satellites at 0 and 9.5 degrees east, Japan's Himawari at 140.7 degrees east, China's Fengyun, Russia's Elektro-L and India's INSAT.²⁰¹

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