Slow Scan TV from ISS planned for October 2008

Miles Mann WF1F has news of planned Amateur Radio Slow Scan TV transmissions from the International Space Station in October when Richard Garriott W5KWQ arrives at the station.

Hello all, Great news.

I have recently returned from the ARISS meeting in Moscow (August 2008). During the meeting we received details on Richard Garriott's upcoming mission. Below is a joint memo from ARISS regarding Garriott's mission.

Richard Garriott:

On Oct 12, 2008, Space flight participant Richard Garriott will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on his way to the International Space Station. After docking with the ISS on Oct 14, he will spend 9 days conducting experiments and doing extensive photography of the Earth.

Since he is also a licensed amateur radio operator W5KWQ, he will be making several school contacts, talking with operators on the ground and transmitting Slow Scan Television images.

The standard downlink of 145.800 will be used for voice contacts, school contacts and SSTV transmissions. Anyone with a FM receiver capable of monitoring the 145.800 MHz downlink can receive audio and SSTV images.

The standard voice uplink frequencies of 145.200 for ITU Region 1 (Europe, Africa and Russia) and 144.490 for ITU regions 2 & 3 (N. America, S. America, Southern Asia, Australia) will be used.

Free software to decode the SSTV image tones is available online. Additional info on SSTV operations is available at: http://www.marexmg.org/fileshtml/howtouseiss.html

Ground stations are encouraged to capture as many of the transmitted SSTV images and forward them to the ARISS team at ARISS-SSTV@amsat.org.

After you receive an image, please rename the images using the following format, (All Lower case letters). All dates and times must be in UTC.

Year 08, Month 10, Day 14, (UTC time), Call sign, (optional Short text description) .JPG

Example:

0810141905wf1f.jpg
or
0810141905wf1fgreatlakes.jpg

If you are not a licensed amateur operator, just place your initials after the time (0607311905abc.jpg)

We would also like to know the following information in your email:

Name or Call sign
Country / State
Receiver
Software decoding tool
Elevation or range of ISS when you decoded the image.

The best image received for a given time period will be posted to http://www.issspacecam.org/ and www.marexmg.org

Additional information about Richard Garriott's flight and activities are available at:
http://www.richardinspace.com/
http://www.challenger.org/
http://www.ariss.org/

If you do not have a tracking program, here is a live link to NASA that will show you where ISS is located.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/index.html

Pictures of the Amateur Radio station on the International Space Station.
http://www.marexmg.org/fileshtml/radiohardware.html

Slow Scan TV:
The Marex Slow Scan TV project, SpaceCam1 was activated for a few weeks in August 2006. We hope to see some new images in October 2008
http://www.marexmg.org/imagessstv/
SpaceCamImages1.htm

Marexmg Web page
http://www.marexmg.org

73 Miles WF1F
MAREX-MG

Until we meet again
DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F