I have been playing with the SATNOGS earth observation satellite system for a few years, but since I am still living in the desert, the climate is against outdoor activities, so its been a bit low key. To work on an antenna on the roof, requires a hat, black sunglasses, a wet T-shirt, a wet towel, a litre of water and a big black umbrella and after that I'm broiled for the day... The few times I tried to download a weather picture, it actually worked, despite having seemingly more noise than signal. An RTL-SDR or HackRF One receiver really needs to have a low noise RF preamplifier for best results. There are several solid state, one transistor preamp kits available that one can buy and build in an evening and stick on the antenna cable, but why do something the easy way, if one can do it the hard way? I recently made a 'simple' (!?) power supply for a Magic Eye cathode ray tube VU meter and the same power supply circuit can be used for a one valve RF receive amplifier
Autonomous planes, trains and cranes...