Copy SSTV from the Space Station over the next few days

[ka3jjz]

The ARISS SSTV Blog...watch this for other announcements

ARISS-SSTV images

Mike

 

[dragon48]

I didn't get anything during last nights first pass - just 100% static.

The blog stated:

*** Update (April 12, 2016)
A faulty connector appears to still be plaguing SSTV operations. I has been working for some periods of time but continues to cause problems for transmissions. It was active over N. America at 20:00 UTC.

It looks like I have 2 more opportunities tonight.

 

[vagrant]

I was able to grab images yesterday during each of the four passes I monitored. I do not use a wide band scanner antenna for this activity. Of the four passes, I used three different antennas. The best result came from a hand held directional antenna I generally moved along the path the ISS was taking. I record the audio and later decode it using MMSSTV. The other two antennas were a VHF/UHF vertical and an M2 Egg Beater Satellite antenna pair for the pass that was close to overhead around 80 degrees above. Those antennas are above my roofline.

The hand held directional antenna always provides the best result because of the gain and directivity...funny that.

 

[dragon48]

I'm using my AOR 8200 MK111 all mode scanner. Maybe the problem is my antenna. I am just using the stock telescopic antenna and hanging out in one fixed area of my apartment. I did go outside once for one of the passes and got nothing as well. I "kludged" up an antenna for shortwave by wrapping copper wire around a metal railing, not more than 5 feet outside my window. Without this, shortwave is nearly unobtainable in my apartment. With it I pick up a lot of stations, many with full signals. I'm also playing around win an old Radio Shack Amplified antenna that is picking up shortwave well, but it isn't bringing in any LSB ham transmissions like the copper wire does.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like either of these hacks is any good for improving F.M. reception.

The next pass over my area is 12:00 A.M. UTC - 8:00 P.M. NYC time. Let me know if you can think of any antenna hacks I can cook up by then

Ty

 

[ka3jjz]

1200 UTC is 8AM NYC time using EDT

Holding it straight up is not the answer, from everything I've read. If all you are using is a telescoping whip hold it at an angle. The reason is that there is a virtual 'null' that goes straight up from antennas like these...Mike

 

[dragon48]

1200 UTC is 8AM NYC time using EDT

Holding it straight up is not the answer, from everything I've read. If all you are using is a telescoping whip hold it at an angle. The reason is that there is a virtual 'null' that goes straight up from antennas like these...Mike

Ty - I meant 8:00 P.M. NYC time. I'll try the angle approach.

 

[ka3jjz]

Another thing - make sure your squelch is wide open, and any attenuation is off. Your RF Gain should be as high as you can get it - and this is key - WITHOUT increasing your background noise which will corrupt your picture.

There used to be an article on the ARRL website (I think - maybe it was on the AMSAT or ARISS site) about how to hear satellites with handhelds, but darned if I can find it now- would be useful information...Mike

 

[dragon48]

Another thing - make sure your squelch is wide open, and any attenuation is off. Your RF Gain should be as high as you can get it - and this is key - WITHOUT increasing your background noise which will corrupt your picture.

There used to be an article on the ARRL website (I think - maybe it was on the AMSAT or ARISS site) about how to hear satellites with handhelds, but darned if I can find it now- would be useful information...Mike

Already have the squelch wide open and att is off. Can I assume I should be in NFM and not WFM mode?

I've got audacity ready to record and MMSSTV open as well as it appears they can both share the mic input.

 

[wtp]

dragon

i sent a PM

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Copied a couple of passes last night, using my scanner and MMSSTV. Seems the transmissions are spaced about 3 minutes (or so) apart. I'm just using vertical antenna and I could hear some phase distortion on the signal as the ISS passed.

 

[wtp]

dragon48

try around 9:30pm

 

[dragon48]

Copied a couple of passes last night, using my scanner and MMSSTV. Seems the transmissions are spaced about 3 minutes (or so) apart. I'm just using vertical antenna and I could hear some phase distortion on the signal as the ISS passed.

Nice - I actually heard a transmission shortly after 8:00 P.M, as I had my backup Icom IC-R10 at full volume, but it was so faint and the static so overwhelmed the broadcast, that my iPhone's SSTV app couldn't get anything from it. MMSTV couldn't get anything from the direct line in feed form my main scanner. I've got one more pass to try tonight.

 

[vagrant]

My wideband scanner antenna actually picked up a pass, but it was reasonably overhead. That antenna is outside about 30' in the air.

* ShawninPaso, MMSTV will fix that horizontal skew. When it finishes, select the "synch" tab and then "left" click on the smiley face. Then "right" click on the smiley face. It will clean that up.

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Hey vagrant, that is terrific of you to share that info, thanks. Haven't used MMSSTV for a long time but was again motivated with the ISS passing over. Much appreciated.

 

[dragon48]

I finally picked up something! This time I was more confident as my tracking here:

Current position of the ISS - Showed that ISS was about to pass directly over New York city, where the tracking tonight's earlier pass and the last 2 days were much farther away. I got excited as MMSTV started to fill stuff in, but after a a few lines, the picture became gibberish. Interestingly enough, when I make the same image from the audio that I recorded, the recognizable beginning of transmission part of the audio starts 9 seconds before the picture starts to display. This isn't much, buy you can clearly make out the"ISS" text and a logo at the top of the image, so it is proof that I picked up and decoded something.

Can somebody tell from the audio (starts 22 seconds before the image is picked up - the "begin transmission" audio is around 3 seconds in. The audio ends when the picture ends) and picture, what went wrong? For full disclosure, when the pic started to come in came in (I'm not sure why I did this I raised the radio volume a drop, but quickly returned it to the original position. Is it possible that my panicky move ruined the rest of the image ? I've spent over an hour trying to get a better picture by adjusting the volume while running MMSTV, but it always makes the exact same picture.

Is it possible to clean up my recording and get a better image, or was the signal just too crappy?

https://soundcloud.com/user-437184959/iss

This remains a ton of fun!

 

[wtp]

i can not decode

but at 11:19 i got the hear the beeps ! on 145.8
on the old pro 2001 and the 396T and that had the radio shack 800Mhz on it.

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Hey Dragon - I listened to your audio and it sounds as though the signal wasn't good enough for a decent capture.

 

[dragon48]

Hey Dragon - I listened to your audio and it sounds as though the signal wasn't good enough for a decent capture.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Also Dragon, here is a YouTube video I just uploaded. The video itself is crud because the frame rate of my camera vs. the computer monitor, but I will leave it here for a while so you can hear the audio of the SSTV sigs coming in from the ISS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW2N8ppjDjg