Any Regularly Scheduled SSTV broadcasts?

[dragon48]

I had a lot of fun with the International Space Ship SSTV broadcast and was finally able to decode a partial picture. This whole exercise
whetted my appetite for SSTV. Are there any regularly scheduled SSTV broadcasts that I can pick up and decode. I tried yesterday, leaving my scanner on 6925 all day, hoping to pick up a pirate radio SSTV transmission, but nothing came in.

I'm not going to pick up anything on F.M., unless the transmission is nearby.

I don't have a great antenna, but at night, I get good reception from 3000 kHz to 12000 kHz, the lower stuff from 3000 to 6000 has been coming in better recently. The internet tells me that 14230 is popular, but when scanning for Shortwave, I've never picked up anything higher than 12100.

Are their any regularly scheduled SSTV transmissions that I expect to pick up in my area? If not, what are some good frequencies to tune to? I haven't tested much during the day, but it looks like I'm not getting anything good before 0:00 A.M. UTC.

 

[AK9R]

I believe there is an SSTV "watering hole" on 20m around 14220 to 14230 kHz.

 

[jwt873]

Like W9BU says.. 14.230 is very popular. Park on 14.230 with your SSTV equipment set to receive. Leave it there all day and you'll capture dozens of images. (I transmit there the odd time using the MMSTV program). MMSSTV - MM HamSoft

Here's a list of all the regular frequencies K3ASI Brian Note that you need a special package for the digital SSTV. (Such as Easypal). You'll hear it on 14.233. It won't decode on phones or tablets. You need a dedicated sound card program that runs on a computer.

 

[dragon48]

Like W9BU says.. 14.230 is very popular. Park on 14.230 with your SSTV equipment set to receive. Leave it there all day and you'll capture dozens of images. (I transmit there the odd time using the MMSTV program). MMSSTV - MM HamSoft

Here's a list of all the regular frequencies K3ASI Brian Note that you need a special package for the digital SSTV. (Such as Easypal). You'll hear it on 14.233. It won't decode on phones or tablets. You need a dedicated sound card program that runs on a computer.

I've been playing around with MMSTV for a few weeks now. The best feature is that it will not just start decoding static all day—It will only decode when it picks up a signal. I just plug my radio into the microphone jack of my sound card and wait.

Please verify that I should be in USB mode, when tuned in to 14.230. I'll try this later. I don't have Easypal, but I'll install it and check out 14.233 as well.

 

[Token]

Please verify that I should be in USB mode, when tuned in to 14.230. I'll try this later. I don't have Easypal, but I'll install it and check out 14.233 as well.

Yes, you should be in USB. For hams almost all HF data is USB, regardless of band. Voice below 10 MHz is normally LSB (except 60 meters), and above 10 MHz is normally USB, but data is pretty much always USB.

Frequency for auto detect in MMSSTV (or almost any SSTV program) is pretty critical. So if you are using your AOR with its frequency offset discussed in the other thread remember to take that into account. In this case I think you would end up tuning to around 14229.4 kHz or so, but it may take some tweaking to find the correct point to tune with that radio.

T!

 

[dragon48]

I just got my AOR3000a Back from AORUSA's repair shop. I have no idea whether it has the same frequency offset as my AOR 8200 MK111, but before I left for work this morning, I tuned it in to 14.2300 MHz USB and let MMSTV rip. I returned home and had 2 images waiting for me in the "history" folder. I could tell by the 931 KB file sizes that they weren't static false positives, as those are smaller, I believe 241 KB. Unfortunately, both pictures are mostly static, but I have sharp eyes, and saw the outline of a man in both, so I took these steps to clean the pictures:

I ran an SSTV image denoiser utility from the excellent VE3NEA SSTV utility package. I used the default settings. I then opened up the fixed files in Adobe Photoshop, and ran - enhance - auto smart fix and saved the output. I learned these tricks when cleaning up my crappy ISS Photo. Had I had an audio recording of the transmission, I may have been able to clean them up more by first using audacity to remove static from the file, the saving it and having MMSTV create a new BMP from the cleaned up sound. I'm getting a lot of great advice here and thought I would share a little.

I'm only posting one picture, as they are both exactly the same before and after cleanup. Sharper folks than I may pick out some more, but if you look carefully to the right, you can see a man wearing headphones.

One image was transmitted at 9:36 A.M., the other at 4:04 P.M.

Can somebody tell from the pictures whether these decoded so poorly because the signal was weak, or was I not tuned in correctly? Did anybody here get better versions of these? If so, were you tuned in exactly to 14.2300? Also, does anybody know where these were sent from?

Thanks

 

[DaveNF2G]

"Scheduled SSTV broadcasts" would violate amateur rules.

 

[ka3jjz]

Why is this - after all, the ARRL broadcasts their bulletins on a regular schedule. ???

Mike

 

[DaveNF2G]

I think everybody knows, or should know, about the ARRL's built-in exemption in Part 97.

 

[bowtie-man]

If your still interested in sstv I came across this page about a sstv cube satellite built school children that is supposed to be released May 16. https://amsat-uk.org/2016/03/03/school-sstv-cubesat-to-deploy-from-iss/