Space Shuttle rebroadcast

[grant]

Live space shuttle stream being rebroadcast on amateur bands in Sydney during a spacewalk (Saturday night)

147.0500
438.5750
438.6500


Grant

 

[grant]

Update on shuttle broadcasts

According to local amateurs the streaming heard on the Amateur frequencies is via a VOIP system called echolink and set up "on demand" if amatuer ops have links from Internet (NASA TV) to the local repeater

438.5750 is the 120w VK2ROT amateur radio 70cm repeater located at Paddington (downtown Sydney)
438.6500 is the 50w VK2RCT amateur radio 70cm repeater located at Blairmont (SW outskirts of Sydney)
147.0500 is the 50w VK2RBM amateur radio repeater located at Lawson (upper Blue Mts) west of Sydney


Grant

 

[Al42]

Again, just to clarify:

These are not live feeds from the shuttle or Mission Control, they're TV feeds NASA provides for the public, and they're time delayed and edited.

According to local amateurs the streaming heard on the Amateur frequencies is via a VOIP system called echolink

Echolink is an internet linkage of amateur stations - it has nothing to do with NASA and, last time I looked, it's not available to the general public.

 

[ThePhantom]

shuttle broadcast

AL42

You seem to be the resident expert

What sort of time delay?
Secs, minutes or hours

If it is just something that is dated ie yesterday, what is the point of rebroadcasting it over the amateur bands

ThePhantom

 

[SCPD]

Just to clarify a couple of things. The Nasa TV feeds weren't through echo link, but through IRLP (internet Repeater Relay Protocol). Echo link is a piece of software that allows amateurs to connect to amateur radio repeaters with their computers, using echolink protocol. IRLP is similar, but it allows a person on the radio repeater, using special DTMF tones, to connect to other repeaters or audio feeds, from their radios ( not computers ). MOst of the feeds fo rthe space shuttle I heard were started by amateurs using IRLP to connect to the correct IRLP node that Nasa TV had set up.
Also the comment on the delays, I found the IRLP feeds actaully were a good 30 seconds ahead of Nasa TV which I alsso was watching online.

Dave

 

[rdale]

You get a delay watching online because of the buffer time, if you compared it to the actual TV broadcast you would not see any delay other than maybe a few seconds for IRLP.

 

[Al42]

You get a delay watching online because of the buffer time, if you compared it to the actual TV broadcast you would not see any delay other than maybe a few seconds for IRLP.

The TV feed is delayed from what's actually being received at the ground station. There's the inherent (is it still 8 seconds?) delay put in by NASA so that they can kill anything they decide they don't want to go out (like personal information). Then there may be additional delays introduced in the control room for various reasons (like their own delay so that they can kill anything they don't want going on the air). That's the signal finally given to the public for TV broadcast, IRLP or any other use.

Whether a particular IRLP link is or isn't delayed from any particular TV link is a moving target. I was addressing the belief I've heard from some that amateur radio rebroadcasts were being received directly from space by hams and being rebroadcast. I know of only 1 case of direct reception by amateur radio, and the guy who did it (he was able to receive the PLSS transmitters from the moon, which even NASA couldn't do) was invited down to the next launch.

 

[SCPD]

Some amateurs out there certainly do get contacts with the space shuttle and the ISS all the time, on various bands. The guys in the ISS particular end up having a lot of time on their hands, and a few of the astronauts have been known to have regular contacts with people on the ground, amatuers that is, for regular chat sessions.
But none of the stuff that was replayed over IRLP was from these contacts. It was all NASA TV audio, which much of the time included the radio transmissions fro the shuttle to the ground control.