The downlink is analog (thus the calibration scales in the margins), and with this kind of hardware your image quality is limited by analog signal quality effec

The downlink is analog (thus the calibration scales in the margins), and with this kind of hardware your image quality is limited by analog signal quality effects. At the source, though, APT ([false]-color pictures from NOAA satellites, as opposed to weatherfax charts) is 980px wide. The satellites are a public service and privately owned receivers are nothing new, the RTL-SDR just made it a whole lot cheaper. The first time I saw this done at an amateur radio meet, the hardware cost many thousands of dollars and occupied a card table. The RTL-SDR is a bit magical in what it's done for hobbyist receiving.