SSTV: Rookie Ham Operator's Guide to Slow Scan Television - Using Robot 36 With or Without a Radio!

This episode of the rookie operator's guide introduces SSTV. I will cover a bit of the fascinating history and theory of how it works, as well as demonstrate how to use it to send or receive with several different software programs. There are many software programs to encode and/or decode SSTV signals - I'll show you a couple of free programs that you can use on a computer or even a smart phone! You'll see that you don't even need a ham radio or license to receive and decode signals to get started with this fun activity.

I've included timestamp bookmarks below for various content in the video so you can jump ahead or return to chapters or audio signals if you want to practice decoding my SSTV signals. "**" indicates an encoded signal that you can decode using the audio from the video:
00:30 Introduction & History of SSTV
01:27 NASA uses SSTV for historic transmissions
03:08 SSTV is legalized for ham radio use
03:57 SSTV using Ham Radio Deluxe software
04:46 ** Sample Robot 36 encoded signal: CQ card with white background
05:25 SSTV using MMSSTV software (FREE)
05:35 ** Sample Robot 36 encoded signal: CQ card with black background
06:41 ** Sample Robot 36 encoded signal: CQ card with alternating black & white bars
07:23 SSTV using Robot 36 Android smart phone app (FREE)
07:42 ** Sample Robot 36 encoded signal: CQ card with bright, multi-colored image
08:23 SSTV calling frequencies (VHF and HF)
09:53 ** Sample Robot 36 encoded signal: Apollo 11 Anniversary CQ card with complex images on dark background

For more information on SSTV, here are some of the links that I found useful in preparing this video:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television

https://nightskyinfocus.com/2020/05/04/psat2-satellite-sstv-images/

http://g0hwc.com/

https://bruxy.regnet.cz/web/sstv/

http://g0hwc.com/sstv_history.html

https://www.qsl.net/sv2fta/software/sstv_soft.htm

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/99753.pdf

https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php

https://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/index.html