Airwave Scan
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Weather

The forecast,
straight off the air.

Before it's an app notification, the weather is on the radio. Airwave Scan tunes the NOAA broadcasts, decodes the emergency alert headers for your county, paints the shortwave charts, and tracks the balloons that feed the models.

NOAA WX radio SAME / EAS alerts HF Weather Fax Radiosondes
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The app's live map with a red '5 weather alerts' banner up top and an orange SAME watchbox drawn over DuPage County — a decoded Required Weekly Test for the county, pinned at its centroid among nearby ham repeaters
The alert detail card for a decoded warning — Event, Severity, Source (National Weather Service), the originating station, and the received and expiry times parsed from the SAME header

Your county, watchboxed — a decoded SAME alert drawn over its FIPS area, live on the map

NOAA Weather Radio & alerts

Your county's warnings, decoded

The 162 MHz weather channels carry a continuous forecast — and the digital SAME header on the front of every alert says exactly who it's for and until when.

  • NOAA Weather Radio — the seven WX channels, tuned and always in the catalog wherever you are.
  • SAME / EAS decoded — event type, the counties affected, and the expiry pulled from the alert header.
  • Surfaced, not buried — a warning for your area lands at the top of the feed with its details.
The nearby-channels catalog with a Weather section — NOAA Weather Radio KWO39 Chicago (2.1 mi) and KZZ81 Lockport (24.2 mi) on the 162 MHz WX channels, sorted by distance from the listener
HF Weather Fax

Charts that paint themselves

The shortwave fax stations still send the surface analyses and forecast charts that mariners rely on. Watch one build, line by line, and keep it.

  • Surface analyses & forecasts — decoded from the HF weather-fax broadcasts as they transmit.
  • Scheduled in the agenda — the coming-up feed knows when the next chart airs, so you don't miss it.
  • Saved to Photos — finished charts drop straight into your camera roll.
A full HF weather-fax chart decoded on the Pi and shown in the Messages feed — the NOAA/OPC Atlantic Surface Analysis with isobars, fronts and the title block, received on 14.070 MHz
Radiosondes

Follow the weather balloons up

Twice a day, weather services launch balloons that telemeter temperature, humidity and position on the way to the stratosphere. Decode them and plot the climb.

  • Sonde telemetry decoded — the common radiosonde types read out on the Pi.
  • On the map — position and altitude plotted live as the balloon rises and drifts.
  • Recover a payload — the last known position helps if you chase sondes for fun.
The Sonde flight card in the app: a weather balloon's descent path on the map, its altitude-over-time chart from 30 km, a Descending pill and a Track-with-rotor control
Live radiosonde telemetry on the flight card: altitude 37,043 ft, max altitude 96,355 ft (29.4 km), descent rate 2,191 ft/min, ground speed, heading and flight time
The Messages feed decoding a radiosonde in real time — Balloon sonde over Davenport, DFM-26003106 on 403.410 MHz, plotted at 44,290 ft with a map pin

Flight card — the balloon's path, altitude & live telemetry

Aviation-band radar

NEXRAD weather radar, off the aircraft datalink

US ground stations broadcast live NEXRAD radar to aircraft on the 978 MHz UAT datalink (FIS-B). Receive it and paint the storms straight onto your map.

  • FIS-B / NEXRAD decoded — the CONUS and regional radar mosaics, read off the air on the Pi.
  • Georeferenced overlay — reflectivity drawn on the map in the standard weather-radar colors.
  • Ground-station map layer — see where the 978 MHz transmitters are, so you know where you're in range.
Screenshot
NEXRAD on the mapDrop a device screenshot here
Weather satellites

Pictures straight off the weather satellites

The Meteor-M2 satellites beam down weather imagery on 137 MHz on every pass. The Pi predicts the pass, captures the downlink, and decodes the picture.

  • LRPT decoded on the Pi — the digital weather-image downlink, turned into a picture on-device.
  • Pass-timed — the orbital math says when the bird is overhead, so the receiver is ready for it.
  • Best with a real 137 MHz antenna — a QFH or a beam on the rotor gets the clean signal the image needs.
A decoded Meteor-M2 3 weather-satellite image in the app's pass card — a greyscale view of the Great Lakes and a frontal cloud band from the 137.900 MHz LRPT downlink, with pass metadata: 3 channels, 900x633, MSU-MR instrument
The Messages feed with a completed Meteor-M2 3 weather-satellite pass at the top — 3 images decoded on 137.900 MHz — above recorded satellite passes

Meteor-M2 pass — the decoded picture, right in the app

Alerts that stand out

Severe weather doesn't wait for you to be watching the feed. Decoded SAME/EAS warnings for your area are flagged and pushed to the top, with the event, the counties and the expiry right there — so the one message that matters isn't lost in the scroll.

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A weather station that listens

A simple VHF antenna pulls in NOAA and the alerts; add an HF setup for the fax charts and a 400 MHz ear for the sondes — all on one Pi.

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