All,

The ARISS team does not plan to use the 144.49 downlink for SSTV for the long term.

The ARISS team fully understands the Region 1 band allocations and wishes to abide by them. It should be noted that amateur satellite communications are allowed by ITU rules in the 144-146 segment. The reason that we have different uplinks in different regions is that the three ITU regions do not have consistent frequency allocations per mode. As an international team, ARISS and many ham radio entities worked hard to clear as many systems (repeaters, APRS, etc) from the lower edge of the AMSAT Satellite band segment (145.80-146) as possible. This enabled ARISS to have a dedicated downlink on 2 meters 145.80.

Our Russian team members were running some initial tests on SSTV last weekend. They utilized 144.49 for these initial tests because they wanted to do a full checkout of the SSTV downlink and there are still a few repeaters on 145.80 in Russia. These tests were successful. We appreciate the amateur community's patience on this while our Russian colleagues were running these tests. Based on these initial tests, the ARISS international team has been working on some procedures for long-term use of SSTV. This includes the use of SSTV on the 145.80 international downlink. As we get closer to final checkout of the system, you will see these changes made.

Thanks for all your interest in ARISS. We are looking forward to some exciting times as SSTV images once again beam down from space!!

73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO ARISS International Chairman

------------------------------------------------- Message: 12 Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 16:07:55 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?F=E9lim_Doyle_M3HIM?= Felim.M3HIM@ntlworld.comSubject: Re: [amsat-bb] ISS SSTV

The 144.490MHz frequency being used on the ISS for the SSTV downlink is not a valid satellite or SSTV frequency in Region 1 as it is just at the top of the CW Beacon segment of the 2m band. So, if the ISS crew are on the ball, they should not have SSTV on when passing over the UK. However, they did have it on during one or more passes at the weekend when I was in the GB4FUN bus at the AMSAT-UK Colloquium. We failed to capture a picture despite having a crystal clear signal and correctly decoding the CW identification. It was possibly because the software was not set up for the correct mode (i.e. not Robot 36).

There may be other opportunities over the coming days/weeks but, as I say, strictly speaking it should not be running over Region 1.

73 de

Félim M3HIM IO91ot Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK