More SSTV from the International Space Station

2021-06-26 · 2 min read · ISS Satellites SSTV ·

My gallery of SSTV images from ARISS "Amateur radio on Shuttle, Mir and ISS" SSTV event - June 21-26

SSTV on ISS

I discussed my set up to decode SSTV from ISS in this post. This post details all the images that I was able to capture. The steps I took to improve what I can capture and next steps. I hope you find it useful. I've also included the captured audio if you want to decode the pictures for yourself.

Changes

I made two major changes. One hardware, one software:

The major hardware change was antenna alignment. Previously, I had my flowerpot antenna vertical and elevated in my back garden up on the wall in the trees. This gave me a large null overhead and reduced the signal strength when ISS passed overhead at high elevation. As I'm at 51.4 degrees north and the inclination of ISS orbit is 51.6 degrees, I do get a lot of overhead and high elevation passes. The solution was simply to lie the antenna down on my garden table. Simples.
I also tweaked the software. As I mentioned in the last post, SDR Console has a satellite plugin that will allow you to autotune for a satellite pass including doppler compensation and auto recording. I worked out how to use it and switched to that over Gpredict.