NOAA-17/NOAA-12 or Not?

I was experimenting with my RaTLsnake M5 telescoping whip from NooElec this morning to see if any of the NOAA satellites can be received. I saw a APT signal on 137.5000mhz but it left to quick for a screen shot to be taken. I looked it up and found it was NOAA-17 or NOAA-12. WMO said the sats were EOL a few years ago.

I used the half wavelength measurement of 109.4cm. 3ft 7-3/32in.

I am dumbfounded now. This can't be NOAA-17 nor NOAA-12. Any ideas?

Thanks

You may still receive RF on 137.500 from NOAA 17 (or several older satellites) but ........

The scan motor is no longer scanning, therefore there will be no image.

My NOAA 19 reception a few years ago using a dongle and ST2 antenna with preamp:
NOAA-19_02-14-2015_2 - Imgur

And the resulting image:
NOAA-19-201502141713-msa - Imgur

Rich

"NOAA 17 has scan motor problems with rising motor currents.
Constant rephase by the MIRP was causing data dropouts on all the HRPT
stream and APT and GAC derivatives.

Auto re-phase has now been disabled and the resulting AVHRR products are
almost all unusable. Daily MIRP rephasing via the Stored Command Table
began on 18 May 2010 (10/138) - at the first pass over the South Pole
each day.

Update 29/09/10 :- Further deterioration in scan motor performance with
no useable data from the AVHRR instrument. Scan motor has stalled."

And ......

"Three of the older NOAA weather satellites which have been
decommissioned and are tumbling freely are known to sporadically put out
a carrier on 137.500 MHz."

You can read a little history of the problem here:
Search Results for “noaa 17” – DK3WN SatBlog

.

Fun

OH Okay learning something new. Still fun to receive it just because it's a satellite and satellites are cool. Thanks for the info!