50 Students of Rajkot India enjoyed SSTV Live Demo during Visible pass of ISS

To spread awareness of Amateur Radio, Satellites & ARISS activities in the region we conducted interesting event recently.

On 12th April 2019 we openly invited students & citizen of Rajkot - Gujarat (India) to be present & witness SSTV Live Demonstration, that too during Visible pass of ISS from terrace of my home.



More than 50 students & citizens assembled to my QTH by 18:30 IST (13:00z). We gave printed ISS tracking chart/ISS crew details to all of them, and explained how to use chart.



Myself Rajesh Vagadia VU2EXP gave brief talk on Amateur Radio, ISS, OSCAR Satellites, Life of Astronauts, ARISS SSTV event, Student Outreach Program etc for one hour. Small display of radio stuff were also kept. Everybody get excited to learn such new things (for them) happening in Ham Radio world.



Good Visible ISS Pass of -3.0 magnitude with elevation of 36° was targeted for Live Demo, calculated for my Grid ML52jh.

With my 3 ele Yagi, VHF HT & recording device we started to track ISS at 19:27 IST (13:57z). Within a minute ISS started to appear from NNW direction moving towards SE. Students were requested to control their excitement & to keep silence as we were also recording audio. Soon sstv signal also get heard on 145.800 MHz. SSTV signal for two images were received & recorded.

It was exciting experience for all to sighting ISS at the same time getting signals from it, felt like having handshake with ISS crew! After pass, we amplified weak audio in Audacity & decoded two images (though bit noisy) with MMSSTV. Decoded Images were shared with all students as souvenir. It proved great learning experience for all. Had lots of Q&A till late and enjoyed light refreshments at end of the program.



As everything was arranged at our home I need to thanks my XYL Kiran, harmonic Snehal VU3WHO, brother Prakash VU3PLJ & nephew Priyesh VU3GLY for extending helping hands.



Btw, leading newspaper Divyabhakshar supported this radio experiment & published good articles (though in regional language Gujarati), pse find it's link below.

http://tinyurl.com/iss-sstv-demo-news

I am thankful to all hams and members of ARISS, AMSAT, ISS Crew, Space agencies, SSTV Award Manager etc involved in such a wonderful educational event offered to the world!

Thanks & 73's
Rajesh P Vagadia VU2EXP
Rajkot - Gujarat (India)
Regional Coordinator
West India Zone
AMSAT-INDIA
M: 9898283916
E: vu2exp@gmail.com
www.qrz.com/db/

 

50 students of Rajkot India enjoyed SSTV live demo during visible pass of ISS
To spread awareness of Amateur Radio, Satellites and ARISS activities in the region we conducted interesting event recently.

On 12th April 2019 we openly invited students and citizen of Rajkot - Gujarat to be present and witness SSTV Live Demonstration, that too during Visible pass of ISS from terrace of my home.

More than 50 students and citizens assembled to my QTH by 18:30 IST (13:00z). We gave printed ISS tracking chart/ISS crew details to all of them, and explained how to use chart.



Myself Rajesh Vagadia VU2EXP gave brief talk on Amateur Radio, ISS, OSCAR Satellites, Life of Astronauts, ARISS SSTV event, Student Outreach Program etc for one hour. Small display of radio stuff were also kept. Everybody get excited to learn such new things (for them) happening in Ham Radio world.

Good Visible ISS Pass of -3.0 magnitude with elevation of 36° was targeted for Live Demo, calculated for my Grid ML52jh.

With my 3 ele Yagi, VHF HT & recording device we started to track ISS at 19:27 IST (13:57z). Within a minute ISS started to appear from NNW direction moving towards SE. Students were requested to control their excitement and to keep silence as we were also recording audio. Soon sstv signal also get heard on 145.800 MHz. SSTV signal for two images were received and recorded.

​

It was exciting experience for all to sighting ISS at the same time getting signals from it, felt like having handshake with ISS crew! After pass, we amplified weak audio in Audacity and decoded two images (though bit noisy) with MMSSTV. Decoded Images were shared with all students as souvenir. It proved great learning experience for all. Had lots of Q&A till late and enjoyed light refreshments at end of the program.

As everything was arranged at our home I need to thanks my XYL Kiran, harmonic Snehal VU3WHO, brother Prakash VU3PLJ and nephew Priyesh VU3GLY for extending helping hands.

Btw, leading newspaper Divyabhakshar supported this radio experiment & published good articles (though in regional language Gujarati), pse find it's link below.
http://tinyurl.com/iss-sstv-demo-news

I am thankful to all hams and members of ARISS, AMSAT, ISS Crew, Space agencies, SSTV Award Manager etc involved in such a wonderful educational event offered to the world!

Thanks & 73's

Rajesh P Vagadia VU2EXP
Rajkot - Gujarat (India)
Regional Coordinator
West India Zone
AMSAT-INDIA
M: 9898283916
E: vu2exp@gmail.com
www.qrz.com/db/vu2exp


http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2019/april/50-students-of-rajkot-india-enjoyed-sstv-live-demo.htm

 

Cool! India is a future superpower IMO, and it's great to see anything there that opens kids' minds to STEM careers. I do think India needs to greatly simplify its amateur radio licensing process, I've read that new hams are required to undergo a govt security clearance which is just stupid and a relic law. India is the only country issuing HR tickets I know of to have such a law.

 

Congratulations on the SSTV QSO with the space station.

 

Congratulations to Rajesh Vagadia VU2EXP, Kiran, Snehal VU3WHO, Prakash VU3PLJ and Priyesh VU3GLY for this very successful outreach project.
It is awesome to see a visible pass of the ISS, or other human spacecraft.
To simultaneously receive SSTV images on 144 MHz, is very impressive!

 

Congratulations. Good job.

 

Vu2EXP.You shall not stop doing this activity only in Rajkot, India. Please put all the info on vu ham group. Condiments & congratulations to you & all.
73.
DATTA
VU2DSI

 

Congratulations

 

Job well done on the the copy of ISS SSTV. Keep up the great work and hopefully some in the audience will become future HAMs and have initiative to go further to have a STEM career. Great story.

 

Thanks Dear Clifton.
Best 73's
de VU2EXP Rajesh

 

Thank you RL Brunton for sharing my article from Southgate. Me too posted same article on qrz.com but it was delayed due to moderation, but now it's appeared too

Thanks again for doing needful from your side.

Best 73's
de VU2EXP Rajesh

 

Dear Bryan KJ6ZOL,
Yes India is moving ahead. We enjoy our hobby & also took efforts to popularize HR in mass. And yes there are excellent student outreach program offered by ARISS to
encourage students towards
STEM!
Btw, pleased to inform that, with adequate efforts by ARSI (Amateur Radio Society of India) & VU ham community, security clearance has been removed for Ham Radio licences, and amateur radio exam is also simplified.
Thanks again for your concern & compliments.
Best 73's
de VU2EXP Rajesh
Rajkot - India

 

Thank you Jimmy N4AAB for encouraging us. We shall be doing lot more work on promotion of ham radio.
Best 73's
de VU2EXP Rajesh
Rajkot - India

 

Dear Bonnie KQ6XA,
Thanks a ton for all your compliments & good wishes.
Your ham profile is just awesome, you learned morse code at the age of 8! and built your first AM radio on a breadboard kit at 11. Just superb.

And yes every participants experienced great thrill while sighting ISS & simultaneously getting sstv signals from it!!!
That was the exactly we want for our public demo.

Thanks & 73's
VU2EXP Rajesh
Rajkot - India