20180602 SSTV

Last weekend I finally got around to playing with SSTV – I run Linux Mint in the shack and had battled with QSSTV and just couldn’t get it to work / transmit through CAT control on the IC-7300. I then tried MMSSTV from HamSoft which is for windows and it runs fine under WINE apart from you have to manually hit the TX button on the radio – thanks to Chris G0JPS for pointing this out 🙂

At the very top of the page (the title image) is an eQSL from my first SSTV QSO with Nick, IK8HOG – Unfortunately I don’t have the images that were exchanged as I wasn’t sure what I was doing and they were over written.

Fortunately, just by chance, my friend Abdel (M0NPT) had decoded one of the stations images to me and he tweeted me the copy he received to congratulate me on getting SSTV set up, Thanks Abdel! 🙂

The hardest part was sorting out the templates – it takes time to learn how it works etc and how to insert them in to the image so they get sent. (I didn’t like the stock ones…) It also takes ages getting them right… you have to edit them individually for most images, if you don’t then they can cover up important parts of the image you are trying to send. What is nice about the software is that it has macros that will populate the templates with the information you add to the software so you don’t have to add each and every call sign and report more than once…

The next hardest bit was preparing the images I wanted to send…. they are only very small (320 x 256) and most of the images I have are from my DSLR so needed cropping…. (Note, there are larger formats but they take a long time to send)

So, I chose some images, re sized and cropped to best fit and away I went… I’ve used some from my Bridge Photography Project… not sure if anyone will understand why they are being sent as they aren’t your ‘normal’ type of images to send – for some strange reason pictures of barley clothed ladies seem to be the order of the day… I’ll try not to send any but no promises – ha ha ha!

There was a good tutorial on the MMSSTV website and as always YouTube can come to your aid when trying to get the above bits right… practice makes perfect and all that – I need a lot more practice that’s for sure!

Here are some of the images from the QSO’s I have made to date…

7 Comments

  1. Got to say Well Done Ad! I’ve been following your twitter feed this week read the SSTV and got to admit it all seems a bit beyond me with my lack of tech knowledge! I’ve finally got to getting the HF back and set up this afternoon just got to tweet my settings!
    All the best
    Kev

    • Hiya Kev

      Thanks 🙂

      I’ve probably made it sound a lot harder than it actually is/was – its more the amount of time taken setting up the templates and understanding how they work than anything technical – I’d be more than happy to talk you through setting it up as best I can 🙂 but I’m sure you could wobble your way through just like me 😉

      73 🙂

      • Cheers Adam, may take you up on that but for starters what’s the link to the software and I’ll have a look at it in the week when I get a few mins. Take it that it works with Windows 7?

          • Brill I’ll give it a go later in the week, I’ve got so much else to do in the house this week, so far was floor boards replaced yesterday, nee bed for me and Mrs XLO too, got sofa arriving Tuesday and measuring up for carpets in the upstairs rooms tomorrow!

          • Hiya Mate, sadly nt had time. I was going to do it this weekend but we took the kids out to a Theme Park yesterday and I’ve been smashing breeze blocks to remove a load of bamboo in the Garden! Hopefully this week I’ll have a look at it. 6m is open right now – just had 3 Spaniards!

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