Pictures from MIR, received by WB2OSZ, December 19 - 27.

Receiving pictures like this doesn't require any fancy equipment or skill. Just an ordinary 2 meter FM transceiver (or scanner) tuned to 145.985 MHz, a computer, and some SSTV software.

John's tips for receiving pictures from MIR:

  1. You don't need special antennas or other fancy equipment. An outdoor antenna will help but you can get by with a scanner and small indoor antenna.
  2. Install some SSTV software such as Pasokon TV Lite or EZ SSTV.
  3. Use a "Y" cable to connect the receiver audio to your sstv system and an external speaker.
  4. Turn off your receiver's squelch so you can hear noise and won't miss weak signals.
  5. Start up your SSTV program.
    1. Click on the "Robot" button to select Robot 36 color mode.
    2. Click on the "Auto Save" button so all received pictures are saved to disk automatically.
    3. Select the "Sync Squelch" option from the Options menu so you don't fill up your disk with pictures of noise.
    4. Click on the "Receive" button.
    5. Make sure there are little dancing lines on the right side of the tuning indicator.
    6. Turn off the monitor.
    7. Unplug the speaker.
    8. Go away for a couple days.
  6. Review the received images by using the "End", "Page Up", and "Page Down" keys.

MIR transmits packet radio most of the time. SSTV activity is rare and random but seems to be mostly on weekend mornings.

Other MIR picture collections:

MSNBC News Story

SSTV Equipment on MIR

MIREX Home Page


SSTV Home Page.