While at Goonhilly Graham Shirville G3VZV received ISS HamTV on 2395 MHz with a 60cm dish
Noel Matthews G8GTZ of the BATC provides an update on the amateur radio ground station at Goonhilly which will receive video from the ISS during the mission of Tim Peake KG5BVI.
Some of you may remember the presentation Graham Shirville G3VZV, gave at CAT15 subtitled “Tim Peake on a TV near you”.
Some of you may have also noticed a new station on the Tutioune map located at Goonhilly in Cornwall.
This station is using a 3.8 m dish is being loaned to the ARISS project by Satellite Catapult, and will be used to track the ISS and provide real time video during the schools contacts scheduled for early next year. This dish is almost in the shadow of the 29 metre dish built in 1962 to receive the first transatlantic television signals from the Telstar-1 spacecraft.
Last week, we (G8GTZ, M0AEU and G3VZV) installed a PC with mini-tutioune software and a DB6NT downconverter to receive the ISS on the dish – It was no surprise that during the tests, we received video for 8.5 minute during one pass and had an MER of 30 dB 🙂
Currently the dish is not tracking the ISS but will be doing so in the near future and will be dedicated to this task for the next 6 months 🙂 In the mean time, the dish is pointing up at 90 degrees (zenith) but the receiver is connected and we received 25 seconds of blank video (visible on the TT monitor page) this morning when the ISS flew over the top of the dish!
There will be a full article on the ARISS Tim Peake project in the next CQ-TV along with pictures of the Goonhilly site.
Whilst we were at Goonhilly last week, Graham could not resist seeing if it was possible to receive the HamTV signal using only a handheld 60cms dish and the Tutioune software – much to the team’s surprise Graham was successful and this was the first reception of the ISS at Goonhilly as the equipment had was yet to be installed on the ground station dish!
Watch CAT15 HamTV on the ISS by Graham Shirville G3VZV
Tutioune map
http://www.vivadatv.org/tutioune.php?what=map&sid=26af759a4ad0cf89cb0f0e59c1cd46c2
HamTV http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/hamtv-on-the-iss/
Satellite Catapult https://sa.catapult.org.uk/
British Amateur Television Club (BATC) http://batc.org.uk/
Twitter https://twitter.com/BATCOnline
