Classic SSTV: KG4I in QSO with N2BJW (1980)

Here is a 20-meter slow-scan TV contact between KG4I in Birmingham, Alabama and N2BJW in Elmira, New York that took place on the afternoon of Saturday June 14, 1980.

This video was received in New Jersey using a mid-1950s vintage Hammarlund receiver, and recorded on cassette tape. Over 30 years later, it was demodulated using a homebrew SSTV scan converter, captured to a Linux-based PC using homebrew software, converted to AVI format using mencoder software, and uploaded to YouTube on December 26, 2010 (Boxing Day Blizzard).

As I recall, other than the computer graphics and live camera shot, the images sent by KG4I were taken from a TV Guide magazine. These were the first SSTV video images I ever witnessed after completing my first P7 monitor on June 15, 1980. It was the odd sound of the 17 percent signs at the top of KG4I's CQ graphic that caught my attention, and provoked me to start the recorder.

Incidentally, I was too close to N2BJW to copy his transmissions, but Scott informed me he had no SSTV transmitting capability at the time of this QSO. SSTV transmissions by KG4I were made using a Robot Model 400 SSTV scan converter capable of 128x128x16 resolution.

VERY COOL!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• slow-scan television
• sstv
• amateur radio

[AndrewPoulain2007]

A couple of the pictures looked better when I received them than the ones in the video...

[Prizmatic0]

Good quality given the age of the media you decoded it from! Nice to see inventiveness like this, congratulations.