Planned SSTV Activity From the ISS 4 – 5 August 2020

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 the AMSAT website has a good primer that will serve as a good reference for those more experienced too.

Posted on Monday, July 27, 2020 by ariss-sstv.blogspot.com.

MAI-75 SSTV activity planned for Aug 4 and 5, 2020

The final crew schedule for the week of Aug 3-9 was released recently and it showed a MAI-75 activity scheduled for Aug 4 and 5. This is soon after the Space X Demo-2 undock so changes to that event could impact the schedule.

The current dates and times of the activity are as follows:

Aug 4 (12:25-18:10 UTC) is setup and day 1 operations; and
Aug 5 (08:15-18:25 UTC) is day 2 operations and close out.

A table of approximate pass times, durations and directions is provided in the table at the bottom of this post. The table is based on the Clubhouse as its location but it should be accurate enough for most people in and around Bristol. The further you are from the Clubhouse the greater the error. If you are planning on using the Gooonhilly Web SDR as a receiver as described in the ESA video linked to at the top of this page then you are advised to run your own pass predictions as shown in the ESA video or outlined at the bottom of this page.

This is the Moscow Aviation Institute SSTV experiment that is activated for orbital passes over Moscow, Russia. It has traditionally been PD-180 or PD-120 and transmitting on 145.800 MHz. Most recent SSTV activity has employed PD-120 but many SSTV programs have an auto-detect mode facility.

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.
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 now 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 since they’re up to 10 now.
iOS – Black Cat Systems sstv-slow-scan-tv.

Table of ISS Passes

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°
Elevation (metres Above Ordnance Datum AoD): 64m

Notes:

In the table below:

Table Entries with no background colour indicate passes where: 0° < Maximum Elevation ≤ 30°
Table Entries with a yellow background indicate passes where: 30° < Maximum Elevation ≤ 45°
Table Entries with a green background indicate passes where: 45° < Maximum Elevation ≤ 90°
Azimuth or Bearings are measured in degrees clockwise from North

Pass No.	Date (UTC)	Acquisition of Signal “AoS”		Maximum Elevation		Loss of Signal “LoS”		Pass Duration (Hr:Min:Sec)
Pass No.	Date (UTC)	Time (UTC)	Azimuth or Bearing	Degrees Above the Horizon	Azimuth or Bearing	Time (UTC)	Azimuth or Bearing	Pass Duration (Hr:Min:Sec)
1	04/08/20	12:44:07	190	11	130	12:52:51	83	00:08:44
2	04/08/20	14:19:15	233	41	140	14:29:58	76	00:10:43
3	04/08/20	15:55:49	264	87	318	16:06:46	85	00:10:57
4	04/08/20	17:32:39	281	76	196	17:43:35	108	00:10:56
5	05/08/20	11:57:26	176	6	135	12:04:56	88	00:07:30
6	05/08/20	13:31:54	224	29	171	13:42:24	76	00:10:30
7	05/08/20	15:08:15	257	84	183	15:19:12	81	00:10:57
8	05/08/20	16:45:05	278	87	224	16:56:02	101	00:10:57
9	05/08/20	18:21:52	284	33	192	18:32:27	133	00:10:35
10	No Viable Pass Data
11	No Viable Pass Data
12	No Viable Pass Data
13	No Viable Pass Data
14	No Viable Pass Data
15	No Viable Pass Data
16	No Viable Pass Data
17	No Viable Pass Data
18	No Viable Pass Data
19	No Viable Pass Data
20	No Viable Pass Data
21	No Viable Pass Data
22	No Viable Pass Data
23	No Viable Pass Data
24	No Viable Pass Data
25	No Viable Pass Data
26	No Viable Pass Data
27	No Viable Pass Data
28	No Viable Pass Data
29	No Viable Pass Data
30	No Viable Pass Data
31	No Viable Pass Data
32	No Viable Pass Data
33	No Viable Pass Data
34	No Viable Pass Data
35	No Viable Pass Data
36	No Viable Pass Data
37	No Viable Pass Data
38	No Viable Pass Data
39	No Viable Pass Data
40	No Viable Pass Data
41	No Viable Pass Data
42	No Viable Pass Data
43	No Viable Pass Data
44	No Viable Pass Data
45	No Viable Pass Data
46	No Viable Pass Data
47	No Viable Pass Data
48	No Viable Pass Data
49	No Viable Pass Data
50	No Viable Pass Data

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