MAI Short ISS Activity Period

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In a TWEET from the ARISS people it has been reported that a short MAI SSTV activity period on the 7th and 8th of April 2022, we expect that a post will be published on the ARISS SSTV Blog shortly.

Moscow Aviation Institute SSTV activation April 2022

The Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) will be conducting their routine SSTV experiment during orbits that pass within range of Moscow, Russia on April 7 and 8. They typically operate PD120 on a downlink frequency of 145.800 MHz using the Kenwood D710E located in the Service Module. The images are sent with about 2 minute gaps between transmissions.

• April 7 – Start about 08:00 UTC, stopping about 15:30 UTC.
• April 8 – Start about 09:50 UTC, stopping about 16:10 UTC.

Note: Dates and times are subject to change due to ISS operational adjustments.

Historically, images are downlinked at 145.800MHz FM +/- 3kHz for Doppler shift and the expected SSTV mode of operation is PD 120. Many FM rigs can be switched been wide and narrow deviation FM filters, for best results you should select the filter for wider deviation FM. Handhelds all seem to have a single wide filter fitted as standard.

There is an official European Space Agency (ESA) video about receiving SSTV from the ISS using the web SDR at Goonhilly for those who don’t have a capability to receive on 145.800MHz. You can see the video here: ESA ISS SSTV Video. For those interested in doing their own reception and decoding either live or after the event using recordings made during the passes for subsequent decoding the AMSAT website has a good primer that will serve as a good reference for those more experienced too.

We encourage you to have a try at receiving and decoding these images, you do not need specialist equipment, Kevin M7AWX was successful with just a handheld, set-top whip and Robot36 on a ‘phone within 2 weeks of passing his Foundation exam, and Greg MW7BUF collected a number of good decoded images using a SDR dongle or a Yaesu FT2900 with MMSSTV. So don’t be put off; give it a try, any images you receive can be included on the Club website if you send them to us; contact details at the bottom of the webpage.

SSTV Programs are available for all platforms so no matter what you use there’s probably something to decode the image:

• Linux including Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi – QSSTV can be found at users.telenet.be/on4qz/qsstv/index.html if you want the absolute latest version. However Debian based distros such as Ubuntu, Mint and others almost certainly will have QSSTV in their repositories as will other mainstream distros and the repository version is usually more than adequate.
• Windows – MMSSTV can be found at hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php.
• Mac OSX – MultiScan can be found at www.qsl.net/kd6cji.
• Android – Robot36 can be installed from the PlayStore and includes both PD180 and PD120. Not sure what minimum version of Android it wants but it runs without issue on Android 6 which is reasonably long in the tooth.
• iOS – Black Cat Systems sstv-slow-scan-tv.

For those who like real time information the Android App AmSatDroid Free is one of a number of live satellite trackers available for Android. Similar apps are available for iOS, a simple example is ISS Spotter.

Table of ISS Passes

Address: Novers Park Community Association, Rear of 124 Novers Park Road, Bristol, BS4 1RN

• Latitude (degrees N-S where North is +ve): 51.425400°
• Longitude (degrees E-W where East is +ve): -2.593882°
• IARU (Maidenhead) Locator: IO81qk
• Elevation (metres above Ordnance Datum AOD): 64m
• What.Three.Words: ///Weeks.Exams.Flight

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Notes:

In the table below:

1. Table Entries with a cyan background indicate passes where: 0° < Maximum Elevation ≤ 30°
2. Table Entries with a yellow background indicate passes where: 30° < Maximum Elevation ≤ 45°
3. Table Entries with a green background indicate passes where: 45° < Maximum Elevation ≤ 90°
4. Times are UK clock time, that is GMT/UTC during the winter and BST/UTC+1:00 during the summer
5. Elevation shows the degrees above the horizon. Zero degrees is the horizon and ninety degrees is directly overhead
6. Azimuth represents the direction to the ISS using a traditional 16 cardinal point compass rose

If you want to run your own location specific pass predictions try using:

• The AMSAT On line satellite pass predictions
• The Heavens Above website

The AMSAT site will require either:

• Method 1
• Your 6 character IARU (Maidenhead) locator square (e.g. IO81qk); and
• Your elevation in metres (e.g. 64).
• Method 2
• The absolute (without +ve or -ve sign) value of your Latitude in decimal degrees and selecting North where the original value is positive (greater than 0) or selecting South where the original value is negative (less than 0) (e.g. 51.4254 North);
• The absolute (without +ve or -ve sign) value of your Longitude in decimal degrees and selecting East where the original value is positive (greater than 0) or selecting West where the original value is negative (less than 0) (e.g. 2.593882 West);
• Your elevation in metres (e.g. 64).

The Heavens Above site is more flexible and will accept any of:

• Method 1
• Your address including postcode (e.g. Novers Park Community Association, Rear of 124 Novers Park Road, Bristol, BS4 1RN); and
• Your elevation in metres (e.g. 64).
• Method 2
• Your What.Three.Words location descriptor (e.g. ///weeks.exams.flight); and
• Your elevation in metres (e.g. 64).
• Method 3
• Your Latitude in decimal degrees where +ve is north of the equator and -ve is south of the equator (e.g. 51.4254);
• Your Longitude in decimal degrees where +ve is east of the Greenwich Meridian and -ve is west of the Greenwich Meridian (e.g. -2.593882); and
• Your elevation in metres (e.g. 64).

When using Heavens Above don’t forget to check that you have the correct timezone (e.g. (GMT +0:00) United Kingdom/Ireland)

Heavens Above understands British Summer Time and corrects accordingly