Portable Satellite Station With Additions For Digital and Packet

We’ve recently upgraded our Portable Satellite Station 2.0 to add digital and packet capabilities. The upgrade was simple – we added a SignaLink USB Soundcard and a Windows Laptop PC. Most of the software for packet and digital Amateur Radio communications is written for the Windows OS, so using a separate laptop running Windows 10 was the simplest way to go. Another benefit of the second laptop was added screen space to use when doing packet communications via satellites and the International Space Station (ISS).

Image From The ISS

We recently learned that the ISS would be again transmitting SSTV images worldwide. This provided a perfect opportunity to work with the digital additions in our satellite setup. We downloaded and installed MMSSTV on our Windows laptop and set the audio levels on the Windows PC and our SignaLink Sound card to properly receive SSTV signals. The MMSSTV application can decode several different SSTV formats, including the PD120 format used by the ISS. The ISS transmits SSTV on a 2m FM voice channel. We configured MacDoppler to track the ISS and perform doppler correction on the 2m ISS 2m downlink and began to listen.

The video above was made during the reception of an SSTV image from the ISS during a pass over the United States. The video gives a good idea of what it is like to receive SSTV from the space station.

Another SSTV Image From The ISS

We were able to receive several different images from the ISS during the period that it was transmitting SSTV worldwide.

A Third SSTV Image

It was easy to capture the SSTV transmissions from the ISS with our Portable Satellite Station 2.0 setup. The signals were strong, and I imagine the SSTV transmission could have also been received with a simple portable satellite setup with a hand-held yagi antenna.

We hope that the ISS will send SSTV images again in the near future. It was fun receiving them.

Fred, AB1OC