The International Space Station (ISS) is a marvel in its own right. It has radio transponders onboard that allow it to operate as a crossband repeater. A crossband repeater about 400Km away which travels at about 7.66 Km/s – So not a typical repeater.
Between 24th and 31 December 2020 the ISS transmitted images for radio amateurs to download and collect. A set of 12 images in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the ARISS program.
ARISS is the Amateur Radio on the ISS program and promotes amateur radio by allowing schools and clubs to arrange contacts with operators onboard the ISS.
Technical info: Images were transmitted on 145.8 MHz FM using the SSTV Mode PD120.
Getting some wallpaper for your efforts.
Decoding the images is easy – if you don’t know how to decode the images, read my other post about decoding SSTV images and also read the post on working satellites.
Once you have the images you could upload them to the online gallery at https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/. If nothing else you get to see the gallery with images uploaded from other hams around the globe – and have yours up there for others to see. However, you could apply for a “QSL-card” certificate by requesting one from https://ariss.pzk.org.pl/sstv.
InSpace offer a “diploma” which you can get by emailing 2 images that are at least 50% decoded to inspacexplorer@gmail.com.
You can also get a certificate of participation by emailing any one of your images to kp4rv@yahoo.com.
Here are some of the images I managed to decode – not a lot because I took a long walk.
