Introduction

Slow Scan Television has been around for about 3 decades but it never got very much attention. The reason is that commercial equipment was very expensive and and it was much too complicated for most people to homebrew. The situation has changed radically in the last couple years. Rather than using expensive special purpose hardware, most of the newer systems are using personal computers to do most of the work. There is now a wide assortment of free software that uses very simple interfaces and ready-to-use commercial systems at affordable prices. New people are showing up on SSTV everyday.

Although SSTV activity has exploded during the last couple years, it's still hard to find much modern information. The most recent SSTV [hardcopy] handbook published in the U.S.A., that I know of, is now almost 20 years old. Technology has changed quite a bit since then.

A very popular introductory book about Ham Radio (no names mentioned but it's available at Radio Shack) devotes only a few sentences to SSTV and describes it as 8 second black & white pictures. It's been nearly all color pictures for many years.

The CQ 1994 Equipment Buyer's Guide lists only two SSTV products and neither is manufactured anymore.

Some outdated and just plain wrong information keeps getting passed back and forth between various lists of SSTV equipment. A while back I sent letters to 29 different suppliers asking about their SSTV and related products. This handbook contains condensed information from all the replies, magazine ads, newsletters and other sources of information.


Home Page. Next Chapter.