Ham TV From International Space Station

| October 18, 2023 | Amateur Radio (Ham Radio), Amateur Radio from International Space Station, Amateur Television (DATV/SSTV) | No Comments

Ham TV From International Space Station

Last Sunday, me and my little grandson saw the recorded version of a previous school contact on Ham TV from International Space Station, during the AMSAT UK Colloquium 2023. Needless to say that we were quite thrilled to watch it. There were recordings from both sides shown in the video. On one side we could see the astronaut moving sideways and turning upside down due to weightlessness in space, while talking to the school children on ground. On other side children were coming and asking questions one by one near the mic at the program on ground. One of the questions struck me – It was something like this: “Heard that the sun rises and sets 16 times a day for you on International Space Station. Does this affect your sleep?” We could watch the session only because British Amateur Television Club (BATC) provided a live link of the AMSAT UK Colloquium 2023. A big thanks to the volunteers from BATC who made this possible for us, sitting comfortably at home, around 8000 km away from the venue.

That was at the tail end of the talk by  Noel Matthews G8GTZ on ‘Receiving HamTV from the ISS’. After lunch break, there was another talk “Next Gen Ham TV on The ISS” by Phil Crump M0DNY. There is a dedicated page for Ham TV on ARISS website. It tells me that the transmitter ceased operations in April 2018. The Ham TV transmitter was sent to Earth in January 2019 for testing and repair. Though that was a bit disappointing, BATC forum on Ham TV tells me that it was back in Houston after repair in January 2023, awaiting further pre-launch tests. The transmit frequency of Ham TV was 2.395 GHz earlier. According to ARISS website, the historic first Ham TV contact from ARISS occurred on 11 February 2016. It was with Royal Masonic School for Girls, Rickmansworth, United Kingdom and on the other side was Tim Peake, KG5BVI. In short, Ham TV is Digital Amateur Television which allows a live video downlink of the astronauts to the audience during ARISS contacts, enhancing engagement and facilitating live zero gravity demonstrations. That was exactly what we saw last Sunday in the recorded version! Let us hope that the repaired Ham TV equipment will be flown back to International Space Station and installed soon!