XPost: uk.radio.amateur, free.uk.amateur-radio, rec.radio.info

AMSAT-UK

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ARISS Europe to Perform Special Digital SSTV Experiment

Posted: 17 Feb 2022 11:29 AM PST https://amsat-uk.org/2022/02/17/ariss-europe-to-perform-special-digital-sstv-experiment/


Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is planning for a special SSTV experiment. ARISS is the group that puts together special
amateur radio contacts between students around the globe and crew members
with ham radio licenses on the International Space Station (ISS) and
develops and operates the amateur radio equipment on ISS.

As part of its ARISS 2.0 initiative, the ARISS International team is
expanding its educational and life-long learning opportunities for youth
and ham radio operators around the world. ARISS Slow Scan Television
(SSTV), which is the transmission of images from ISS using amateur radio,
is a very popular ARISS mode of operation. To expand ARISS SSTV
capabilities, the ARISS Europe and ARISS USA teams plan to perform special
SSTV Experiments using a new SSTV digital coding scheme. For the signal reception, the software KG-STV is required, as available on internet.

We kindly request that the amateur radio community refrain from the use of
the voice repeater thin this SSTV experiment on February 20, 2022, over
Europe.

This is a unique and official ARISS experiment. We kindly request keeping
the voice repeater uplink free from other voice transmissions during the experiment time period. Also note that ARISS is temporarily employing the
voice repeater to expedite these experiments and make a more permanent,
more expansive SSTV capability fully operational on other downlink
frequencies.

The first experiment in the series will utilize ARISS approved ground
stations in Europe that will transmit these digital SSTV signals. These
will be available for all in the ISS footprint when SSTV transmissions
occur. The first SSTV experiment is planned for February 20, 2022, between 05:10 UTC and 12:00 UTC for five ISS passes over Europe. Please be aware
that this event depends on ARISS IORS radio availabilities and ISS crew support, so last-minute changes may occur.

To promote quick experimental SSTV investigations—to learn and improvethe ARISS team will employ the ISS Kenwood radio in its cross-band repeater
mode. The crossband repeater operates on a downlink of 437.800 MHz. Each transmission sequence will consist of 1:40 minute transmission, followed by 1:20 minute pause and will be repeated several times within an ISS pass
over Europe.

The used modulation is MSK w/o error correction. For the decoding of the
320 x 240 px image, the software KG-STV is required. The KG-STV software
can be downloaded from the following link:

http://amsat-nl.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/kgstv_ISS.zip

The ZIP file contains the KG-STV program, an installation and setup manual, some images and MP3 audio samples for your first tests as well as links for additional technical information about the KG-STV use.

The members of the ham radio community youth and the public are invited to receive and decode these special SSTV signals.

Experiment reports are welcome and should be uploaded to
sstvtest@amsat-on.be

More information will be available on the AMSAT-NL.org web page:

https://amsat-nl.org/?page_id=568

(for the team: Oliver Amend, DG6BCE)

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