Space Station SSTV November 2024

[dickie757]

Nov 2024 SSTV

With the new hardware and software installed and tested, here comes another SSTV event. ARISS Slow Scan Television ( SSTV) transmissions ...

ariss-sstv.blogspot.com

Always fun trying catch images.

 

[dragon48]

I've had a portable running and connected to a digital recorder since I saw the AMSAT-UK email notification yesterday. I usually get these with more notice, but it didn't come in until yesterday 09:04 UTC. It's easy to tell if I picked up a transmission from looking at Audacity spectrograms of the recordings. I just changed batteries and checked the audio. Nothing so far, but I'm supposed to get two visible passes later today. The one at 21:52 UTC is a good (45°) angle, so I'm hoping to have something to share later.

 

[dickie757]

I had a decent pass last night, and only heard repeater traffic. I looked at the uploads page, and did not see any USA call signs, until this morning.

Keep listrning!

 

[dragon48]

Today, at roughly 10:55 UTC, I did meet the definition of making contact, but I'm very disappointed with the results. 😞

I wasn't setup with a splitter, so I didn't hear what was going on at the time, but I could tell that the start of the image wasn't going to be great from the flashing nature of the green reception light. Then, around 40-seconds in, the signal cut off completely. I was outside in a parking lot at the time and have no idea whether the vehicle passing at the exact moment of the dropped signal was to blame. I doubt it though, as it sped off quickly, and when it came back, the signal was just barely coming in for a while. I got a cleaner signal toward the end.

The next pass is approaching, but it looks like it's going to be too far away for my setup to pick up anything.

So, I'll start the image gallery here, but can somebody please reply with a decent image.

I'm going to be running my setup 24x7 for the duration of the scheduled broadcast, and hopefully I'll have something good to
show off.

 

[dickie757]

The timing of my long passes has been stupid. As it comes over the horizon, the sound becomes very distinct and clear. Perfect copy for.....40 seconds!!!! then end of transmission bleep. Then 2 whole minutes of silence then the start of another transmission as it fades away........

 

[jwt873]

I just managed to snag one. The pass was directly overhead. If it wasn't cloudy, I could have gone out and watched it fly by in the night sky.

A big fade midway left some noise on the image..

 

[ind224]

14 NOV 24 01: 17 EST pass and 13 NOV 24 19:33 EST

 

[Token]

The timing of my long passes has been stupid. As it comes over the horizon, the sound becomes very distinct and clear. Perfect copy for.....40 seconds!!!! then end of transmission bleep. Then 2 whole minutes of silence then the start of another transmission as it fades away........

The image takes 2 minutes and 10 seconds to complete, the dead air between images is 2 minutes. So about 4 minutes and 10 seconds image start to image start. This means that it takes roughly a 6 or 7 minute pass to guarantee a full image. Although you can get lucky and do a full image in a 3 minute pass. On a very good 12 minute pass you can get 2 complete and one or two partial images.

Quick back of napkin math below, may be full of errors.

There are 12 images in this series, numbered 1 to 12, sent sequentially, and restarts the sequence after the 12th image. This means a full 12 image cycle takes about 52 minutes, two cycles take about 100 minutes. The ISS orbits once every 90 minutes, but because of the Earths rotation you see it more like once every ~97 minutes (varies slightly by a lot of variables), so about 3 minutes (on average) less than it takes to do 2 image cycles. That means (very rough approximation) that if you see image 6 this orbit, next orbit you see image 5, the next orbit image 4, etc.

Because of this, and the fact that you probably will get no more than about 8'ish passes a day, and not all passes result in good images, it can be hard to get all 12 images. In this current campaign I have received all passes, everyone above my horizon, and I have copies of all 12 images. Several image numbers I have 6 or ore good copies of. But I have only had a few passes that include image #9, and none of them were sent with the station above my horizon the whole time, so I have, yet, no complete image #9.

This is the best image #9 I have managed, and the image started being transmitted before ISS came above my horizon (thus the clipped top).

T!

 

[oaktree_b]

I managed to get four images, I'm about an hour north of Toronto. I just found out about it from the saveitforparts channel guy on youtube. Used a Uniden Bearcat BC125At scanner and the Robot36 app on my android phone.

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[spacellamaman]

I managed to get four images, I'm about an hour north of Toronto. I just found out about it from the saveitforparts channel guy on youtube. Used a Uniden Bearcat BC125At scanner and the Robot36 app on my android phone.

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Hey thanks alot for mentioning that app. I knew nothing about it. I have a lady friend who was very excited to see the ISS a couple of nights ago, if I could figure out how to time something like this out, it ought to knock her socks off!

 

[RichM]

This is the best image #9 I have managed, and the image started being transmitted before ISS came above my horizon (thus the clipped top).

T!

That is a beautiful decode, well done! I see from your location that you are in the desert, I assume that means very few if any obstructions and a broad view of the sky. If I may ask, what antenna are you using?

 

[oaktree_b]

Hey thanks alot for mentioning that app. I knew nothing about it. I have a lady friend who was very excited to see the ISS a couple of nights ago, if I could figure out how to time something like this out, it ought to knock her socks off!

The app is stupidly easy to use. You literally just click on it and it starts working. I was trying to fiddle with it, but you just open it and it auto-selects the encoding mode... Oh, it works!

 

[dickie757]

I have had that one in my quiver for a while. On the other side of things, there's SSTV Encoder for Android. Again, really simple...pick an image and a mode and press play.

I had a bit of fun during this event, but it was a bust for me.

Thanks to all of you that contributed!

 

[Token]

That is a beautiful decode, well done! I see from your location that you are in the desert, I assume that means very few if any obstructions and a broad view of the sky. If I may ask, what antenna are you using?

Sorry for the delayed response, I was on travel a few days and just looked at the forums for the first time since then.

Yes on desert, and yes on broad skys. Natural topography results in the average natural obstruction most of the way around me being a few degrees tall. But, there are taller mountain peaks in a few directions around me (actually, all the way around me, to some extent). The closest is 7k feet higher than my location, and 6 or 7 miles away, so maybe ~13 degrees in that specific direction. So that is my worst natural limitation, and the majority of the way around the compass my natural limitation is 5 deg or less.

However, because of where my pedestal is I do have some other, man made (or at least, man caused), obstructions. The 7 foot tall tower section I use for an ISS / other LEO sat tracking antenna support does not see well over the top of the house, two of my garages, or a couple of trees. So it depends on the direction, in most areas I can see right down to the natural horizon, but a few other areas I cannot see that low. In these other areas I might have obstructions up to 20 deg above the horizon, and in one specific direction I have a couple 30 foot trees I have to see through.

For the most part though, I can see the ISS or any other orbital target pretty quickly after the software says that object is over my natural horizon, but there are a few less good angles.

The antenna used for that reception was an M Squared 2MCP8A. This is a 2 meter, 4 element, circular polarized, Yagi made for LEO sat operation. In this case it is part of a 2M / 70 cm pair (the 70 cm antenna is the 436CP16, 8 element, circ pol Yagi) of antennas marketed by M Squared as the "LEO Pack". That pair of antennas, along with a dual pol LOG-PER covering 100 MHz - 1300 MHz, and (sometimes) a 3 foot dish with various feeds, are mounted on top of a 7 foot section of tower. They all track the target of interest via a modified Yaesu G5500 EL over AZ rotator.

T!

 

[Token]

This is the best image #9 I have managed, and the image started being transmitted before ISS came above my horizon (thus the clipped top).
<<<snip>>>

I ended up getting a better #9, in fact several of them before the campaign ended. Here is an example:

The image I got the fewest of in the almost 40 passes ( I think it was 39 or so passes, but honestly lost count), over 100 images, partial and whole, was image #4/12. Out of all of that I only got three copies / receptions of the #4 image, two complete and decent copies (decent, but not perfect), and one partial.

T!

 

[vagrant]

They have used that one before. Here is the version I received in 2019.

 

[Token]

They have used that one before. Here is the version I received in 2019.

View attachment 173213

Was that the Aug 2019 campaign? It looks like I have a copy of that (bad quality, but same image) from Aug 03, 2019, 2209 UTC.

Yes, they have reused various images over the years. For example, image #2 in the most recent series (Nov 2024) was image #5 in the Aug 2019 campaign.

T!

 

[vagrant]

Yeah, August 3, 2019. Here is another from that same day and perhaps the same pass. These are some of the best I have captured. Having the ability to record audio directly using the radio has helped. By the way, how many watts are they using for SSTV? I don’t remember and I thought it was changed after the radio upgrade.