SSTV High Altitude Balloon Event in NY June 29

Do you enjoy the ISS SSTV events but wish they would use live images like me? I know they don't get a lot of time for extra activities so I decided to try my own SSTV experiment.
On June 29th I will be launching a high altitude balloon in conjuction with the Triple Cities Makerspace.
The balloon with have an APRS transmitter and also a slow scan tv transmitter which will send back live images of the atmosphere while in flight!
The SSTV frequency will be 145.600 MHz and if you are around 500 miles of Binghamton, NY we invite you to listen in and decode images. To upload images and for more information check out https://reachfornearspace.com
I'm working on getting an echolink node set up so even if you are not local you can listen in and decode images from near space!
73's
KD2PYB

 

I will give a listen but may be out of range

 

What time are you launching the balloon?

 

Probably around 10:30 EST...depending on weather.

 

Thank you, I'll need to make a point of listening for it.

 

Have you considered setting up a broadcastify account. It's free and very easy
to set up and maintain. There is about a 30-45 second delay between actual
on air transmissions, and what you will hear on the site, but would let people
listen world wide. I run the link for our local repeaters here in fulton county
NY. As a bonus it is all recorded on their server so you can go back up to 90
days (I believe) to download the transmissions.

 

Thanks, I'll check it out!

 

What gear are you using in the box? Details man! lol

 

Right! We are using a MicroTrak-2001 from Byonics for APRS. For SSTV we are using a raspberry pi zero with the pi camera, a pHAT dac for a sound card interface and a baofeng with vox for transmitter. The pi runs a shell script set up as a linux service (just in case it reboots midflight) that takes a picture and formats it, then converts it to Martin2, then plays it out the sound card where it will be transmitted over the handheld. I do have an sa868 module that would be lighter than a handheld but still figuring out how to program it and may use it for a future flight. Also packing a lightdow camera for video . Hoping all this works!

 

How are you going to Tx the VIS and/or synch tones?

The receiving station can manually set the Rx program to Martin 2 as a "work around" for the VIS tones, if they know that will be the mode used, perhaps that needs to be emphasized.

Good Luck

 

For the sa868 module look at nicerf.com It looks like they may have the tools you need.

 

Looking at the docs, I think they're using the same serial protocol as the DRA-818V/U, so you can start out by using anything that works with that -- including hamlib, which has DRA-818 drivers in recent versions (model codes 3101/3102).

 

We were playing with high altitude baloons back in the mid 90s. The Manhattan Area Amateur Radio Society, MAARS, club was very active as lots of the members were students and faculty of Kansas State University. We made up packages containing an HT, some experiments and later on included GPS for more accurate tracking. We used to have trackers that would go out in their car and track the HT, satellite stations on 40M for when our launch station would loose reception and of the trackers would monitor and communicate on this band also. We had lots of fun and experiences finding the package and retrieving it. The trip for the baloon and parachute return was always interesting.

Have fun, enjoy your experiences and keep us posted.
73, Chuck, AA0RI

 

That's the right stuff. I always wanted to do something like that. Even though it's been done before but I can easily imagine feeling the excitement (or disappointment if it fails) seeing images showing up realtime from altitudes where the U2 and SR71 flew, and with your ***own*** gear! If it doesn't work, try again!

 

Thank you for sharing - sounds like fun!