My first SSTV

Over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with receiving data from satellites. I built a ground station for both TinyGS and SatNOGS using spare parts.

The most interesting signals received so far were pictures from the International Space Station and a Russian satellite UmKA-1, transmitted using SSTV.

Whilst the ISS is a giant space station, UmKA-1 is a tiny cubesat that would fit in a backpack. Both transmit images regularly, the IIS images in this blog post are from SSTV Expedition 74 Series 32 titled “Cooperation in Space”.

All images in this blog were received with ~£100 (€114 EUR / $135 USD) of equipment in my garden. These were transmitted from a satellite ~400KM away moving at 17,500mph, so it is remarkable they can be received with such a basic setup.

Many of the images transmitted by UmKA-1 are drawn by schoolchildren.

There is a strong space or astronomical theme to pictures also, with planets and the moon featuring regularly.

Sometimes the signal quality is not good enough to receive a whole image, and multiple passes of the satellite are needed, as shown below.

SatNOGS makes automated recording of the satellite data very easy, though I had to use MMSTV for decoding. Over the coming weeks I plan to build a better antenna to receive these, and experiment with other satellites that transmit SSTV on a regular schedule.