SSTV (Slow Scan Television) on 20m

Hi All,

Recently whilst dialling that VFO on the radio I came across some sounds I recognised on 14.230MHz namely SSTV signals.

I did have a play around with receiving SSTV from the International Space Station on 2m a while back but unfortunately never received a solid complete image due to my local repeater being very close to the same frequency. (It's so close I get it S9 without an antenna plugged in!!) I could've tried harder to grab a window of opportunity that didn't coincide with the repeater ident but we also have a local numpty that randomly keys up the repeaters in the area.

I lost interest after that until I came upon the signals on 20m.


After a quick look about I did come across the MMSSTV-YONIQ pages as well as the HamSoft site for a Windows version of SSTV software which is handy as my past experience was only with Linux and now have a Windows laptop.

It's pricked my interest enough to investigate it all further but I wondered if any of you out there in Charlie Tango land use or have played with HF SSTV at all?


Any useful input you could provide would be much appreciated but otherwise I'll try and grapple with it on my own.

I look forward to any and all responses.


All the best,
Victor

Hi Victor,

I think you may well be one step ahead of us all, so please bear with us whilst we catch up!!

Cheers,

Simon.

Hi Simon,

Nah, SSTV has been around for ages.


Only pricked my interest after hearing the signals on air so I decided to check it out further. Seems I can use my existing equipment I built for FT8 to utilise with SSTV so should be just a case of setting up the software.

I shall add it to my list of 'things to do or try' much as any other of the amateur radio interests. Let's just hope that when I give it a go some numpty doesn't whistle up over the transmissions.


Cheers for the reply though, thought this would be another 'unanswered' posting until I added something.

All the best,
Victor

Did have a quick play around with it the back end of last year.
Me and a m8 managed to send to each other but that was as far as we got.

Nice one Alan mate.  

I'd like to give it a bash for a bit of SSTV DX on HF and see how it goes. I remember back in my 'yoof' playing around with VHF TV sets tuning them for European i-PAL and picking up Continental television. Probably my first experience of tropospheric propagation conditions thinking about it. All in the past now thanks to digital TV and nowadays I need a 24 element beam to pick up TV signals from the mahoosive Sandy Heath transmitter I can literally see on the horizon!?!?! 

Even then we're cabled nowadays so we don't have to put up with random blocks on screen whenever the neighbour fires up their lawnmower.

Progress..........

Cable tv never got to Anglesey.
Will be 3 years until we get fibre to the property.
We are always the last but don't think cable tv will ever get here.

I'd swap my cabled hundreds of TV channels with nothing interesting on any of the them for your coastal ground plane any day of the week Alan mate.  


(Still no Oceania or South America yet! That 'World Continents' is eluding me.  )

We have 2 Firesticks with an App on them and with a yearly subscription we can get almost every tv channel in the world but Linda can never find anything to watch. 

15 out of 60 on the Oceania for me lol.

Off topic now but there you go.
(Bad Admin.)

15 Oceania contacts.....smug get.


Here Alan, can you have imagine less than two years ago we were gearing up for taking the exam and now doing all this! I still get asked when I'm going to do Intermediate and I often tell them I'm just simply having too much fun at the moment.

I remember it well lol.
The first thing i did when i passed was to buy the intermediate book from the book club.
To this day the package is sat unopened on the shelf.
Personally i am very happy where i am.
Never been a big power user even back in the 80's i loved to get a contact and turn the power down just to see how far and on how low a power i could get.
Early 90's i used to talk quite often to a guy called Ivan.
First contact with him was around 8 or 9am and he was a low signal to me and i asked where he was.
He told me Anglesey so i then asked where on the island and he came back with some funny name ???.
Turned out there is an Anglesey in Australia and we talked several times but one time i turned the power down to i think it was 2w and he still got me.
Happy day's and still getting them on my 10w so why stress myself out and you know how well i do that.

Anybody got any input on sstv to stop us 2 old timers chatting lol.

Never done anything with SSTV before. Thought I would have a little play this morning after reading your post. Only RX.

Started to follow a utube video by G5STU. Downloaded MMSTV, and my virus protection quarantined it. After half hour of playing with the virus protection software settings I got it out of quarantine but when I tried executing the exe nothing happened, so deleted the file.

Downloaded RX-SSTV. Installed with no issue and fired up a webSDR in the Nederland's. Within a few minutes I had decoded my first image on 20m. Very poor quality, but at least working.



Flicked around some other webSDRs and bands and soon had a few other better images come though.



Might try plugging the DX-300 receiver into the old slow laptop I use for logging at some point as the laptop has mic and speaker jacks. Don't want to mess around with the G90 for TX though for now, happy to just listen/view.

Can't really be any help at this time Victor as all new to me. Looks fun though.

Alan, that Intermediate manual.. whilst some of it looks intimidating and complex (at least to me), it's worth a scan through at least. I learned a few things good operations wise that I wouldn't of know about if I hadn't. But yes, in agreement with you both, I am having a lot of fun with what I am allowed right now and extra power does not interest me.

Well done there Neal!

Nicely done and thanks for the input, most appreciated.

I too had problems with the MMSSTV and went through the rigmarole of uninstalling, installing the old version then reinstalling all to no avail. (Started screaming at Windows and wishing I had Linux again! ) Put it on the back burner but now going to try the software you used.

Glad you've had fun with it and after all that's what it's about and why I'd like to try it.

Good idea on the secondary receiver, I may well have to hook the old Lowe up to the other laptop and see what I get whilst doing other things.

Awesome stuff Neal....had to give you a thanks.


Yep, M7-itis at it's best....sounds like we're all having fun!

(Sorry Alan, MW7-itis too and all inclusive. )


Oh, forgot about the Black Pearl Inn where we can shoot the breeze as much as we like even 'off topic'.

Installed and worked straight away.

Nothing on air yet but I'll keep it running. Obviously RX only so I will have to get back to the MMSSTV software if I'm going to transmit.

Thanks again Neal. It's why I posted up knowing full well that many heads are better than one.

Just had a look what software i had installed and it is MMSTV.
Unfortunately it is in this pc and not the pc connected to the radio.

Well......at least it filled in the proverbial five minutes :-











That was the best of the bunch with most images being a garbled mess!

Tried another 'sweetie' in the Ham radio sweetshop, not overly impressed so time to move onto the next.

Always worth a try though.

As you said always worth a try.
When me and a m8 tried it i found it like watching paint dry but that's just me.

You got the receiving working though Victor, well done. To me it felt like watching loading screens appear on ZX Spectrum games in the '80s as the images came in. A bit nostalgic. The dirty misaligned head of a VHS player effect gives it even more '80s feel

Hi Lads,

Worth giving it a go even if for the briefest of interest.


Ha! Yeah Neal, did feel like 'Manic Miner' or 'Jet Set Willy' was going to fire up after a picture load.

Just like VHS image pause jitter it's a technology reminiscent of the 1980's and although my old Yaesu is that old too at least I've hooked her up to more modern transmission methods like FT8. (Which is actually way more interesting than first seems.)


Cheers again, much appreciated. 

I got MMSSTV working on my steam powered laptop that I have been using for digi modes today. It took a lot of messing about to get it running and then configured correctly, but once it was all done and a few images came through I managed to have my first complete SSTV QSO. Only Italy on 20m and they only gave me a 444, but for my first one and keeping to 10W I am happy