juliensimon/satnogs-transmitters

SatNOGS Satellite Transmitter Database

Credit: NASA

Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face.

Dataset description

Crowdsourced database of satellite radio transmitters from the SatNOGS network, maintained by the Libre Space Foundation.

SatNOGS (Satellite Networked Open Ground Station) is an open-source project that maintains a comprehensive database of satellite transmitters, including uplink and downlink frequencies, modulation modes, baud rates, and operational status. The data is crowdsourced from a global network of ground station operators.

The SatNOGS network represents one of the most ambitious citizen science projects in space operations. Hundreds of volunteer-operated ground stations around the world automatically schedule satellite passes, record RF signals, and upload observations to a central database. The transmitter database documents the exact frequencies, modulation schemes, and data rates needed to decode each satellite's signals.

The database spans the full radio spectrum used by satellites, from VHF (around 145 MHz) through UHF (435 MHz, the most common amateur satellite band) to S-band (2.4 GHz) and beyond. Each transmitter entry is linked to its parent satellite via NORAD ID, enabling cross-referencing with orbital elements for pass prediction.

This dataset is suitable for tabular classification tasks.

Schema

Column	Type	Description	Sample	Null %
uuid	string	SatNOGS DB unique transmitter identifier (UUID v4); stable primary key for this record	UzPz4gcsNBPKPKAFPmer7g	0.0%
description	string	Human-readable label for the transmitter (e.g. 'NOAA 15 APT', 'ISS FM Voice'); null for unlabeled entries	Upper side band (drifting)	0.0%
alive	bool	True if the transmitter is known to be currently active; False if confirmed dead; based on community-verified observations	True	0.0%
type	string	Transmitter functional type (e.g. 'Transmitter' for downlink-only, 'Transceiver' for uplink+downlink, 'Transponder' for linear/inverting)	Transmitter	0.0%
uplink_low_hz	float64	Lower bound of the uplink (ground-to-satellite) frequency range in Hz; null for downlink-only transmitters	145850000.0	94.1%
uplink_high_hz	float64	Upper bound of the uplink frequency range in Hz; equals uplink_low_hz for single-frequency uplinks; null for downlink-only	145950000.0	98.8%
uplink_drift	float64	Uplink frequency drift in Hz/s due to Doppler or oscillator instability; null for most entries	0.0	99.8%
downlink_low_hz	float64	Lower bound of the downlink (satellite-to-ground) frequency range in Hz; primary frequency for fixed-frequency beacons	136658500.0	0.1%
downlink_high_hz	float64	Upper bound of the downlink frequency range in Hz; equals downlink_low_hz for fixed-frequency transmitters; null for beacon-only	29500000.0	98.6%
downlink_drift	float64	Downlink frequency drift in Hz/s due to Doppler or oscillator instability; null for most entries	21954.0	92.5%
mode	string	RF modulation and encoding scheme (e.g. 'FM', 'BPSK', 'CW', 'AFSK', 'GFSK', 'LoRa'); null if unspecified	USB	0.4%
baud	float64	Symbol/bit rate in baud (symbols per second); range ~50 baud (CW) to 9600+ baud (high-rate telemetry); null if not applicable	2048.0	46.5%
norad_id	int64	NORAD Space Surveillance Network catalog number of the parent satellite; join key with TLE and SATCAT datasets	965	0.0%
status	string	SatNOGS DB curation status: 'active' (confirmed working), 'inactive' (confirmed not transmitting), 'unknown' (unverified)	active	0.0%
citation	string	Free-text attribution or reference for the transmitter entry; null for most community-contributed entries	CITATION NEEDED - https://xkcd.com/285/	0.0%
downlink_mhz	float64	Downlink low frequency in MHz (derived: downlink_low_hz / 1e6); useful for band filtering (VHF: 30-300, UHF: 300-3000, S-band: 2000-4000 MHz)	136.6585	0.1%

Quick stats

• 4,778 transmitter entries
• 2,746 currently active
• 2,507 unique satellites
• 55 transmission modes
• Top modes: FM (1,496), BPSK (645), GMSK (440), FSK (394), CW (378)

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/satnogs-transmitters", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/satnogs-transmitters", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Active transmitters
active = df[df["alive"] == True]
print(f"{len(active):,} active transmitters")

# UHF band (300-3000 MHz)
uhf = df[(df["downlink_mhz"] >= 300) & (df["downlink_mhz"] <= 3000)]

# Frequency band distribution
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
freqs = df["downlink_mhz"].dropna()
plt.hist(freqs[freqs < 3000], bins=100)
plt.xlabel("Downlink Frequency (MHz)")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.title("Satellite Transmitter Frequency Distribution")
plt.show()

# Transmitters per satellite
sats = df.groupby("norad_id").size().sort_values(ascending=False)
print(f"{len(sats):,} unique satellites")

Data source

https://db.satnogs.org/

Related datasets

• juliensimon/space-track-satcat

• juliensimon/ucs-satellite-database

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About the author

Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.

Citation

@dataset{satnogs_transmitters,
  title = {SatNOGS Satellite Transmitter Database},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/satnogs-transmitters},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0