Posts Tagged ‘amateurradio.com’
Big shoes to fill!
November 13th, 2017 | 
Author: After a "year off" the ARRL announced in the December issue of QST, it's newest operating event.
The 2018 ARRL International Grid Chase follows on the heels of the successful Centennial operating event and the even more successful National Parks On The Air operating event.
The idea is work as many different Maindenhead grid squares as you can, on any band (expect for 60 Meters) using any mode. Contacts made through satellites will count; but contacts made through earthbound repeaters will not.
So how will all these contacts be kept track of? Through Logbook Of The World, of course! So it is imperative that you have an LOTW account as well as the station you are working. When you both upload your logs to LOTW; and you get a match, you get credit for a valid QSO for the ARRL IGC.
While total cumulative results will be posted at the end of the year, the clock will "reset" so to speak, at the beginning of each month. So each month of 2018 will be like a new operating event; or competition. (I hate to use the word "contest", as we all know that contests are forbidden on the WARC bands.)
Should you not know your Maidenhead Grid Square locator, it's easy to find out. You can either look yourself up on QRZ.com, or go to http://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php. What's interesting about these two methods is that you might get different results. QRZ tells me that my grid square is FN20to and Levine Central tells me that it's FN20so. No matter ...... for the purposes of the ARRL IGC, you'll only need the first four places. In addition, exchanging the grid square during the QSO is not required. LOTW will keep track of that. I suppose that for those who will go out and activate rare grids, there will be some provision made for identifying what grid square was operated from when uploading contacts into LOTW.
Will this be as successful as the last two events? That remains to be seen. The Centennial Event was huge success and NPOTA was a monster success. In any event, kudos to the ARRL for continuing to come up with ideas to keep Amateur Radio life a little on the spicier side.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
The 2018 ARRL International Grid Chase follows on the heels of the successful Centennial operating event and the even more successful National Parks On The Air operating event.
The idea is work as many different Maindenhead grid squares as you can, on any band (expect for 60 Meters) using any mode. Contacts made through satellites will count; but contacts made through earthbound repeaters will not.
So how will all these contacts be kept track of? Through Logbook Of The World, of course! So it is imperative that you have an LOTW account as well as the station you are working. When you both upload your logs to LOTW; and you get a match, you get credit for a valid QSO for the ARRL IGC.
While total cumulative results will be posted at the end of the year, the clock will "reset" so to speak, at the beginning of each month. So each month of 2018 will be like a new operating event; or competition. (I hate to use the word "contest", as we all know that contests are forbidden on the WARC bands.)
Should you not know your Maidenhead Grid Square locator, it's easy to find out. You can either look yourself up on QRZ.com, or go to http://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php. What's interesting about these two methods is that you might get different results. QRZ tells me that my grid square is FN20to and Levine Central tells me that it's FN20so. No matter ...... for the purposes of the ARRL IGC, you'll only need the first four places. In addition, exchanging the grid square during the QSO is not required. LOTW will keep track of that. I suppose that for those who will go out and activate rare grids, there will be some provision made for identifying what grid square was operated from when uploading contacts into LOTW.
Will this be as successful as the last two events? That remains to be seen. The Centennial Event was huge success and NPOTA was a monster success. In any event, kudos to the ARRL for continuing to come up with ideas to keep Amateur Radio life a little on the spicier side.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
New club in town
There's a new QRP Club, or new Yahoo Group, if you will. It's the California QRP Club and membership is open to any QRPer. Residence in the Golden State is not a prerequisite.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/calqrp/info is the link. And as Doug Hendricks KI6DS, posted:
"The purpose and goals of the California QRP Club is to promote QRP. We don't have dues, we don't have officers, and we don't have business meetings. We do have monthly get togethers in San Jose, and we will be a co-sponsor of the qrp activities at Pacificon next year. The club will have two caretakers, Steve Smith, WB6TNL and Doug Hendricks, KI6DS. They will be responsible for the running of the club. We will not do anything that involves the exchange of money to the club. If there are expenses, Steve and Doug will pay them.
We will also issue membership numbers, only upon request. You may get yours by sending an email to directly to Steve. Do not send your request to this list. It will not be acted upon. To get your California QRP Club membership number send an email to Steve Smith at [email protected] with "CalQRP Membership number" in the subject line. Steve will assign a number to you.
I plan on doing more issues of QRPp, but it will not have a regular schedule and will be posted as a downloadable file in the file section of this list.
The first announcement that we would like to make is that the club has an Amateur Radio Club License, and the call sign is WA6GER. We are dedicated to preserving the memory and legacy of Jim Cates, and plan on activating his call at least once a month. More on that later. This was formerly the club Vanity Call Sign of NorCal but it was allowed to expire and was not renewed. When the 2 year grace period for renewal had passed, the FCC cancelled the license and WA6GER was returned to the available call sign database where anyone could have claimed it. Steve Smith did the leg work to secure the call and I want to thank him publicly for it.
Everyone is invited to join the California QRP Club, and you may do so by going to (Ed. note - see link above). and signing up."
So there you - new group in town.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/calqrp/info is the link. And as Doug Hendricks KI6DS, posted:
"The purpose and goals of the California QRP Club is to promote QRP. We don't have dues, we don't have officers, and we don't have business meetings. We do have monthly get togethers in San Jose, and we will be a co-sponsor of the qrp activities at Pacificon next year. The club will have two caretakers, Steve Smith, WB6TNL and Doug Hendricks, KI6DS. They will be responsible for the running of the club. We will not do anything that involves the exchange of money to the club. If there are expenses, Steve and Doug will pay them.
We will also issue membership numbers, only upon request. You may get yours by sending an email to directly to Steve. Do not send your request to this list. It will not be acted upon. To get your California QRP Club membership number send an email to Steve Smith at [email protected] with "CalQRP Membership number" in the subject line. Steve will assign a number to you.
I plan on doing more issues of QRPp, but it will not have a regular schedule and will be posted as a downloadable file in the file section of this list.
The first announcement that we would like to make is that the club has an Amateur Radio Club License, and the call sign is WA6GER. We are dedicated to preserving the memory and legacy of Jim Cates, and plan on activating his call at least once a month. More on that later. This was formerly the club Vanity Call Sign of NorCal but it was allowed to expire and was not renewed. When the 2 year grace period for renewal had passed, the FCC cancelled the license and WA6GER was returned to the available call sign database where anyone could have claimed it. Steve Smith did the leg work to secure the call and I want to thank him publicly for it.
Everyone is invited to join the California QRP Club, and you may do so by going to (Ed. note - see link above). and signing up."
So there you - new group in town.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
It’s been a long, long time.
It has indeed been a long time since I've moved to this new work location. The old work QTH was in Warren, NJ and the new is in Whitehouse Station, NJ. Same job, same company, different campus. I am about 10 miles (more or less) farther west into the interior of New Jersey than I used to be. It adds about another 10 minutes to my commute.
There are two of us in my department. Things were easier in Warren, as we both worked from the same (and only) building on campus. We staggered our lunch breaks so that one of us was always on duty. Here, at the new work QTH, we are split between two buildings, each one of us minding our own store, so to speak. Unless you master bi-location, you can't manage both buildings at the same time with one man.
That led towards a hiatus in lunchtime QRP operations as it just seemed not the greatest idea to spend so much time away from the desk. I know, it's time I'm entitled to (it's only an hour) and I really should get away from the desk to remain fresh in the afternoon.
So I decided to take advantage again, beginning this week.
I went out to the car yesterday and hooked up the KX3 to the Buddistick. I heard a lot of stations on 20 Meters, but got no answers to any of my calls. I know the equipment works, I figured it was just a bit of "rust" on my part. But, boy howdy, was it hot yesterday! It reached into the upper 80s (about 30C) here at lunchtime and since I was parked outside, it was hot like an oven in the car. It was a double negative experience - too hot and skunked on contacts.
Not one to be deterred, my little eye spied on something that I had forgotten. This campus has picnic tables! Many of the employees go out to eat outdoors on the nice days. There are plenty of tables, they are spaced widely enough apart where conversations cannot encroach on one another.
It dawned on me that this would be the perfect place to set up the KX3 and the magloop! Sure, I'd probably get some stares from the other lunchers, and maybe from some of the employees who take advantage of their lunch break to walk the perimeter of the campus - but what they heck? Right? It's not like I haven't been stared at before. It's not like people haven't come up to me to ask, "What is that?" before, so tossing self-consciousness into the wind, I decided to set up at one of the tables today.
I chose a table towards the end of the line of tables, the one with no umbrella. Sure, it would be a little hotter with no shade, but it's less than an hour and besides, there's be no metallic umbrella ribs to possibly interact with the magloop.
Before hunting for a QSO, I decided to call CQ for a bit on both 20 and 17 Meters. I really didn't expect anyone to answer, although there's no reason why anyone wouldn't. I just wanted to conduct a little Reverse Beacon Network experiment.
Experiment done, I went back to 20 Meters and found the "sweet spot" with the loop's tuning capacitor. (I was able to set up in under four minutes, by they way. Almost as fast as setting up the Buddistick on the car.) Tuning the KX3 around, there were a bunch of loud stations. Finally, I came upon GI4DOH, Rich in Northern Ireland. He had a strong signal and a great fist, so I gave him a call. He came back to me on the first shot! He was 559+ here in NJ, and I got a 559 in return.
According to his QRZ page, the loop that Rich is using is a receive only loop. This was not a loop to loop QSO.
After working Rich, I popped on up to 17 Meters. There I heard OE3DXA, Wern in Austria calling CQ. Again, loud signal, great fist, so I gave him a call. Just as with GI4DOH, I gave him a 599+ report but this time I got a 599 in return. Both QSOs were solid with no repeats asked for with regard to info, so I am assuming I was at or near Q5 copy. (Even if the 599 in return wasn't exactly accurate.)
It was time to pack it in, and I was satisfied with the two DX QSOs for the day. With regard to my Reverse Beacon Network experiment, this was where the loop was allowing my signal to be heard:
As for spectators, I did get one guy who stopped to ask, "What is that? And what are you doing?" I explained that it was Amateur Radio and an Amateur Radio antenna. In response, I got the (what seems to be standard) "People still do that?" question.
I went into "pitch" mode and explained that yes, Amateur Radio is alive and well, and that for a lot of people in the Caribbean right now it's the only way they can get word out to their families abroad, that they are OK after the hurricanes.
So it was a successful day, I'm happy and it looks like there might not be rain for the rest of the work week.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
There are two of us in my department. Things were easier in Warren, as we both worked from the same (and only) building on campus. We staggered our lunch breaks so that one of us was always on duty. Here, at the new work QTH, we are split between two buildings, each one of us minding our own store, so to speak. Unless you master bi-location, you can't manage both buildings at the same time with one man.
That led towards a hiatus in lunchtime QRP operations as it just seemed not the greatest idea to spend so much time away from the desk. I know, it's time I'm entitled to (it's only an hour) and I really should get away from the desk to remain fresh in the afternoon.
So I decided to take advantage again, beginning this week.
I went out to the car yesterday and hooked up the KX3 to the Buddistick. I heard a lot of stations on 20 Meters, but got no answers to any of my calls. I know the equipment works, I figured it was just a bit of "rust" on my part. But, boy howdy, was it hot yesterday! It reached into the upper 80s (about 30C) here at lunchtime and since I was parked outside, it was hot like an oven in the car. It was a double negative experience - too hot and skunked on contacts.
Not one to be deterred, my little eye spied on something that I had forgotten. This campus has picnic tables! Many of the employees go out to eat outdoors on the nice days. There are plenty of tables, they are spaced widely enough apart where conversations cannot encroach on one another.
It dawned on me that this would be the perfect place to set up the KX3 and the magloop! Sure, I'd probably get some stares from the other lunchers, and maybe from some of the employees who take advantage of their lunch break to walk the perimeter of the campus - but what they heck? Right? It's not like I haven't been stared at before. It's not like people haven't come up to me to ask, "What is that?" before, so tossing self-consciousness into the wind, I decided to set up at one of the tables today.
I chose a table towards the end of the line of tables, the one with no umbrella. Sure, it would be a little hotter with no shade, but it's less than an hour and besides, there's be no metallic umbrella ribs to possibly interact with the magloop.
Before hunting for a QSO, I decided to call CQ for a bit on both 20 and 17 Meters. I really didn't expect anyone to answer, although there's no reason why anyone wouldn't. I just wanted to conduct a little Reverse Beacon Network experiment.
Experiment done, I went back to 20 Meters and found the "sweet spot" with the loop's tuning capacitor. (I was able to set up in under four minutes, by they way. Almost as fast as setting up the Buddistick on the car.) Tuning the KX3 around, there were a bunch of loud stations. Finally, I came upon GI4DOH, Rich in Northern Ireland. He had a strong signal and a great fist, so I gave him a call. He came back to me on the first shot! He was 559+ here in NJ, and I got a 559 in return.
According to his QRZ page, the loop that Rich is using is a receive only loop. This was not a loop to loop QSO.
After working Rich, I popped on up to 17 Meters. There I heard OE3DXA, Wern in Austria calling CQ. Again, loud signal, great fist, so I gave him a call. Just as with GI4DOH, I gave him a 599+ report but this time I got a 599 in return. Both QSOs were solid with no repeats asked for with regard to info, so I am assuming I was at or near Q5 copy. (Even if the 599 in return wasn't exactly accurate.)
It was time to pack it in, and I was satisfied with the two DX QSOs for the day. With regard to my Reverse Beacon Network experiment, this was where the loop was allowing my signal to be heard:
As for spectators, I did get one guy who stopped to ask, "What is that? And what are you doing?" I explained that it was Amateur Radio and an Amateur Radio antenna. In response, I got the (what seems to be standard) "People still do that?" question.
I went into "pitch" mode and explained that yes, Amateur Radio is alive and well, and that for a lot of people in the Caribbean right now it's the only way they can get word out to their families abroad, that they are OK after the hurricanes.
So it was a successful day, I'm happy and it looks like there might not be rain for the rest of the work week.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
868MHz LoRa HAB Tracking Success
Most HAB (High Altitude Balloon) tracking in the UK involves the use of 434MHz ISM devices due to the ready availability of suitable antenna and receiver equipment due to it sharing the 70cm amateur radio bands.
868MHz ISM devices are available but are not as widely used. Back in December I posted about trying to track a flight by HAB Enthusiast Dave Akerman who is experimenting using LoRa devices on this band. I had limited success receiving that flight and another ones so when I saw that Dave was planning another flight today using 868MHz LoRa I had a rethink on how to approach tracking it.
The antenna I used was a collinear one built from cheap satellite coax, similar to that I built for ADB-S however rather than having a long coax run to the LoRa gateway I opted to put the Raspberry Pi up on the pole at the base of the antenna to limit any loss.
The antenna can be seen connected to the Raspberry Pi and LoRa add on board, the Pi has a WiFi dongle.
The antenna was inserted into a piece of conduit to keep it upright and it and the Pi were strapped to a 5m painters pole (using a plastic lid as an insulator)
A USB power pack was also strapped to the pole to keep the Pi powered, hopefully you can see it in the photo below.
The pole was put up and was about the same height as my normal dual band collinear
Well it all worked extremely well, and got a lot of decodes as can be seen by the pie-chart generated by the habitat.habhub.org system, the third best receiver only bettered by Dave himself (M0RPI) and a station nearer to the flight path.
You can see my geographical position relative to the flight below (I am the station NNE with the green line, about 160km away) and received a lot of telemetry strings even when the height of the balloon meant I was outside the 5 degree above the horizon circle (shown in green).
The Pi was connected to my network via WiFi and controlled by a Putty console on my shack PC
It was a useful experiment and I am thinking of installing a dedicated mast mounted LoRa receiver with 868 and 434MHz antennas (and possibly pre-amps and filters) following this result.
868MHz ISM devices are available but are not as widely used. Back in December I posted about trying to track a flight by HAB Enthusiast Dave Akerman who is experimenting using LoRa devices on this band. I had limited success receiving that flight and another ones so when I saw that Dave was planning another flight today using 868MHz LoRa I had a rethink on how to approach tracking it.
The antenna I used was a collinear one built from cheap satellite coax, similar to that I built for ADB-S however rather than having a long coax run to the LoRa gateway I opted to put the Raspberry Pi up on the pole at the base of the antenna to limit any loss.
The antenna can be seen connected to the Raspberry Pi and LoRa add on board, the Pi has a WiFi dongle.
The antenna was inserted into a piece of conduit to keep it upright and it and the Pi were strapped to a 5m painters pole (using a plastic lid as an insulator)
A USB power pack was also strapped to the pole to keep the Pi powered, hopefully you can see it in the photo below.
The pole was put up and was about the same height as my normal dual band collinear
Well it all worked extremely well, and got a lot of decodes as can be seen by the pie-chart generated by the habitat.habhub.org system, the third best receiver only bettered by Dave himself (M0RPI) and a station nearer to the flight path.
The Pi was connected to my network via WiFi and controlled by a Putty console on my shack PC
It was a useful experiment and I am thinking of installing a dedicated mast mounted LoRa receiver with 868 and 434MHz antennas (and possibly pre-amps and filters) following this result.
Shortwave Radiogram
In March 2013 The Voice of America (VOA) started an experiment called the VOA Radiogram which transmitted digital text and images using the powerful 50 year old analog shortwave broadcast transmitter at the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station near Greenville, North Carolina.
The idea was anyone could receive the radiogram on any shortwave radio, even an inexpensive portable one with no SSB capability. By feeding the audio from the radio to a computer, either by a audio lead or even using the a microphone the listener could decode the text and images using simple software.
I had seen mention and reports on social media of people receiving them but somehow never got around to trying it myself.
VOA ended the experiment back in June this year a week before the retirement of the program producer Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott. An offer to continue the broadcasts on a contract basis was declined, so a follow-on show called Shortwave Radiogram began transmission from the WRMI Radio Miami International transmitting site in Okeechobee, Florida and Space Line in Bulgaria.
The Shortwave Radiogram transmission schedule is (at the time of writing and all times UTC)
Saturday 1600-1630 9400 kHz
Sunday 0600-0630 7730 kHz
Sunday 2030-2100 11580 kHz
Sunday 2330-2400 11580 kHz
All via WRMI except for 9400 kHz, which is via Space Line in Bulgaria.
I spotted a tweet a few weeks back (can't remember who from) mentioning the @SWRadiogram so my interest was piqued, I wasn't around for this weekends Saturday transmission in Europe but had a go on Sunday for the one from America. I wasn't expecting great things due to the levels of noise and poor conditions of late.
I have the decoding program FLdigi already installed on my computer for other datamodes and for information on how to decode the radiograms (sent using MFSK32) visit this page
On the 0600UTC transmission I managed just one poor image
but during the Sunday 2030UTC transmission I got four decent images, the fifth was lost to QRM
I also made two short videos (on hand held mobile phone so a bit shaky) which show the incoming text and images.
The idea was anyone could receive the radiogram on any shortwave radio, even an inexpensive portable one with no SSB capability. By feeding the audio from the radio to a computer, either by a audio lead or even using the a microphone the listener could decode the text and images using simple software.
I had seen mention and reports on social media of people receiving them but somehow never got around to trying it myself.
VOA ended the experiment back in June this year a week before the retirement of the program producer Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott. An offer to continue the broadcasts on a contract basis was declined, so a follow-on show called Shortwave Radiogram began transmission from the WRMI Radio Miami International transmitting site in Okeechobee, Florida and Space Line in Bulgaria.
The Shortwave Radiogram transmission schedule is (at the time of writing and all times UTC)
Saturday 1600-1630 9400 kHz
Sunday 0600-0630 7730 kHz
Sunday 2030-2100 11580 kHz
Sunday 2330-2400 11580 kHz
All via WRMI except for 9400 kHz, which is via Space Line in Bulgaria.
I spotted a tweet a few weeks back (can't remember who from) mentioning the @SWRadiogram so my interest was piqued, I wasn't around for this weekends Saturday transmission in Europe but had a go on Sunday for the one from America. I wasn't expecting great things due to the levels of noise and poor conditions of late.
I have the decoding program FLdigi already installed on my computer for other datamodes and for information on how to decode the radiograms (sent using MFSK32) visit this page
On the 0600UTC transmission I managed just one poor image
but during the Sunday 2030UTC transmission I got four decent images, the fifth was lost to QRM
I also made two short videos (on hand held mobile phone so a bit shaky) which show the incoming text and images.
ARISS 20th Anniversary SSTV
This weekend has seen another SSTV event from the International Space Station, this time in commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station)
The 20 year history of ARISS was displayed through a collection of 12 images highlighting the accomplishments of the project over the last two decades.
As the ISS has orbited the world it has been transmitting the SSTV signals using FM on the usual downlink of 145.800 MHz, here at my QTH in the UK the passes have occurred late at night into the early morning, averaging 3 - 4 reasonable passes each day.
The signal has been very strong and so some excellent low noise images have been received by many people using just modest equipment. While not the greatest technical achievement in the world it nonetheless generates much needed interest in ARISS and amateur space communication.
My own system consisted of the Yaesu FT-857D and MMSSTV running on the shack PC and was left on automatic receive (I was tucked up in bed) and managed to get decent copies of all the images.
Image 8 reminded me of the fun I had back in 2011-2012 of receiving the ARRISAT-1 and was one of the key things that convinced me to finally get off my backside and actually get licensed, even if it took me another 12 months and to this day haven't really cracked satellites myself! My previous blog posts on that can be found at http://nerdsville.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/arissat-1
Here are the best of my images, for a full description of what each one depicts visit http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/anniversary-image-descriptions.html
The 20 year history of ARISS was displayed through a collection of 12 images highlighting the accomplishments of the project over the last two decades.
As the ISS has orbited the world it has been transmitting the SSTV signals using FM on the usual downlink of 145.800 MHz, here at my QTH in the UK the passes have occurred late at night into the early morning, averaging 3 - 4 reasonable passes each day.
The signal has been very strong and so some excellent low noise images have been received by many people using just modest equipment. While not the greatest technical achievement in the world it nonetheless generates much needed interest in ARISS and amateur space communication.
My own system consisted of the Yaesu FT-857D and MMSSTV running on the shack PC and was left on automatic receive (I was tucked up in bed) and managed to get decent copies of all the images.
Image 8 reminded me of the fun I had back in 2011-2012 of receiving the ARRISAT-1 and was one of the key things that convinced me to finally get off my backside and actually get licensed, even if it took me another 12 months and to this day haven't really cracked satellites myself! My previous blog posts on that can be found at http://nerdsville.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/arissat-1
Here are the best of my images, for a full description of what each one depicts visit http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/anniversary-image-descriptions.html
ARISS 20th Anniversary SSTV
This weekend has seen another SSTV event from the International Space Station, this time in commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station)
The 20 year history of ARISS was displayed through a collection of 12 images highlighting the accomplishments of the project over the last two decades.
As the ISS has orbited the world it has been transmitting the SSTV signals using FM on the usual downlink of 145.800 MHz, here at my QTH in the UK the passes have occurred late at night into the early morning, averaging 3 - 4 reasonable passes each day.
The signal has been very strong and so some excellent low noise images have been received by many people using just modest equipment. While not the greatest technical achievement in the world it nonetheless generates much needed interest in ARISS and amateur space communication.
My own system consisted of the Yaesu FT-857D and MMSSTV running on the shack PC and was left on automatic receive (I was tucked up in bed) and managed to get decent copies of all the images.
Image 8 reminded me of the fun I had back in 2011-2012 of receiving the ARRISAT-1 and was one of the key things that convinced me to finally get off my backside and actually get licensed, even if it took me another 12 months and to this day haven't really cracked satellites myself! My previous blog posts on that can be found at http://nerdsville.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/arissat-1
Here are the best of my images, for a full description of what each one depicts visit http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/anniversary-image-descriptions.html
The 20 year history of ARISS was displayed through a collection of 12 images highlighting the accomplishments of the project over the last two decades.
As the ISS has orbited the world it has been transmitting the SSTV signals using FM on the usual downlink of 145.800 MHz, here at my QTH in the UK the passes have occurred late at night into the early morning, averaging 3 - 4 reasonable passes each day.
The signal has been very strong and so some excellent low noise images have been received by many people using just modest equipment. While not the greatest technical achievement in the world it nonetheless generates much needed interest in ARISS and amateur space communication.
My own system consisted of the Yaesu FT-857D and MMSSTV running on the shack PC and was left on automatic receive (I was tucked up in bed) and managed to get decent copies of all the images.
Image 8 reminded me of the fun I had back in 2011-2012 of receiving the ARRISAT-1 and was one of the key things that convinced me to finally get off my backside and actually get licensed, even if it took me another 12 months and to this day haven't really cracked satellites myself! My previous blog posts on that can be found at http://nerdsville.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/arissat-1
Here are the best of my images, for a full description of what each one depicts visit http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/anniversary-image-descriptions.html
