SSTV sent through ARISSat-1 transponder

Henk PA3GUO has made the first successful transmission of a Slow Scan TV (SSTV) image through the ARISSat-1 linear transponder. His receiver was an AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle SDR

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle Pro

The 435 MHz receive antenna on the ARISSat-1 satellite was snapped off during deployment but despite that Amateurs have been able to carry out CW and SSB contacts using its linear software defined transponder (SDX), downlink 145.922-145.938 MHz. Now Henk PA3GUO has succeeded in sending a Slow Scan TV picture through the transponder.

On the AMSAT bulletin board he writes:
This morning [Tuesday, Aug 9] at 02:58utc I succesfully did a short SSTV test using the linear transponder of ARISSat-1:
http://www.pa3guo.com/pa3guo_arissat1_sstv_
9aug2011_0258utc.jpg

Prior to this I did some experiments with CW, starting at 50W, going down to 5W. My TS2000 does not go lower as 5W, but I believe even 1W or lower will be audible. In my opinion the transponder uplink is VERY sensitive.

Using the FunCubeController SDR is it nice to see the full downlink spectrum, on the left the CW+BPSK signals, the transponder downlink in the middle, and the FM downlink on the right.

Equipment:
Uplink HW: TS2000X, 435MHz, 5W RF power + 12 elements beam

Uplink SW: MMSSTV + HRD (doppler control)

Downlink HW: FunCubeDongle (SDR) + SP-2000 preamp + 2×6 elements beam

Downlink SW: MMSSTV + DK3WN Satcontrol (doppler/freq control) + HDSDR (SDR)

Henk, PA3GUO