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Turn a satellite's radio beeps into a real photo of Earth

Weather satellites beam pictures of Earth down to anyone with a radio that costs about the same as a takeaway. SatDump turns that signal into images of clouds, coastlines and storms. You start with a real recording, so you'll have your first satellite image in 15 minutes without buying anything.

20 minIntermediateTools: Free (a USB radio is optional, for catching your own)Step 1 free
Tested 9 Oct 2026 · SatDump 1.2.2 portable, a 13-minute NOAA APT sample recording, Windows 11 laptop with no graphics card
SatDump, the free open-source satellite decoder, running from a folder (nothing to install)
A real weather satellite recording turned into images of South America in under 15 seconds
Colour cloud-temperature images, plus the exact kit and settings to catch your own from a satellite overhead
Before you start
  • A Windows PC, a Mac or an Ubuntu Linux PC, with about 300MB of free disk space
  • No radio for steps 1 to 5. Step 6 explains the kit for catching your own
  • Happy typing a few commands? If not, do Terminal survival kit first
01/06Download SatDump (no installer)0 done
STEP 01 of 06~3 min

Download SatDump (no installer)

SatDump is the free tool hobbyists use to turn satellite radio signals into pictures. The portable version is just a folder.

  1. SatDump is open source and free. It knows how to decode dozens of satellites. We'll use the portable zip from its official releases page ↗: nothing gets installed, and deleting the folder removes it.

  2. Open PowerShell and paste this. It downloads the zip (about 46MB), unpacks it into a SatDump folder in Downloads, and checks it runs:

    Windows PowerShell
    cd $HOME\Downloads
curl.exe -L -o SatDump.zip https://github.com/SatDump/SatDump/releases/download/1.2.2/SatDump-Windows_x64_Portable.zip
Expand-Archive SatDump.zip -DestinationPath SatDump
cd SatDump
.\satdump.exe version
    Output
    [03:23:17 - 09/10/2026] (I) This is SatDump v1.2.2

  3. Unzipped, the folder is about 100MB.

  4. On a Mac, download SatDump-macOS-Silicon.dmg (or SatDump-macOS-Intel.dmg for an older Intel Mac) from the same releases page ↗, open it and drag SatDump into Applications. You'll use its window instead of typed commands (step 3 shows how).

    Ubuntu 24.04 (for 22.04, swap 24.04 for 22.04 in the link)
    cd ~/Downloads
curl -L -o satdump.deb https://github.com/SatDump/SatDump/releases/download/1.2.2/satdump_1.2.2_ubuntu_24.04_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./satdump.deb
mkdir -p SatDump && cd SatDump
satdump version
    TipVersion 1.2.2 is the latest stable release. SatDump's online docs are already written for the 2.0 test version, so some screens there may look different from yours.
✓
Checkpoint.\satdump.exe version prints This is SatDump v1.2.2.
If it breaksExpand-Archive says the destination already exists + 1 more
Expand-Archive says the destination already exists
You've unzipped it before. Add -Force to the end of the Expand-Archive line to overwrite it, or delete the old SatDump folder first.
SatDump made a satdump folder in AppData
That happens if you run it from a different folder, for example .\SatDump\satdump.exe from Downloads. It still works, but it keeps its settings in %APPDATA%\satdump instead of its own folder. Always cd into the SatDump folder first, as above.
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