What is the setup required for receiving GOES weather satellite imagery using an SDR?

The setup required for receiving GOES weather satellite imagery using an SDR is more advanced than NOAA APT because GOES satellites are geostationary (at approximately 35,786 km altitude), resulting in much weaker signals that require a directional dish antenna. The required setup: a dish antenna (a 60-120 cm offset satellite dish (repurposed Ku-band TV satellite dish) with a custom feed horn for the GOES HRIT/LRIT frequency band at 1694.1 MHz (L-band); the feed horn is a helical or patch antenna designed for RHCP at 1694 MHz; gain: approximately 18-24 dBi for a 60-100 cm dish), an LNA (a low-noise amplifier is essential due to the weak signal (approximately -130 dBm at the antenna output); the LNA must provide: 20-40 dB gain, less than 0.5 dB noise figure, and a bandpass filter centered on 1694 MHz to reject out-of-band interference; recommended: Nooelec SAWbird+ GOES ($35) or a custom-filtered LNA), an SDR receiver (an RTL-SDR dongle works (the GOES HRIT signal bandwidth is approximately 1.2 MHz, well within the RTL-SDR's capability), but: a higher-quality SDR (Airspy Mini, $100) provides better dynamic range and lower noise floor, improving the demodulation margin), dish pointing (the dish must be pointed accurately at the GOES satellite (GOES-16 at 75.2W or GOES-18 at 137.2W for North America); pointing accuracy: within approximately 2-3 degrees (for a 60 cm dish with approximately 6 degree beamwidth at 1694 MHz); use a satellite dish pointing calculator and fine-tune by maximizing the signal strength in the SDR software)), and decoding software (SatDump: open-source, actively developed satellite decoder that handles GOES LRIT and HRIT demodulation and decoding; goestools: Linux-based GOES decoder; produces full-disk Earth images, regional mesoscale sectors, and derived products (fire detection, lightning mapping)).