[amsat-bb] 50 Students of Rajkot India enjoyed SSTV Live Demo during Visible pass of ISS

[Rajesh Vagadia - VU2EXP]

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
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 at gmail.com
www.qrz.com/db/vu2exp