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*                  ATGP 2017 SSTV Report for Roan                        75
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For my side, I downloaded the SSTV Slow Scan TV app from the Apple/iTunes 
store and installed it on my iPhone 6. The cost was $2.99. Here is a link 
to the app:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sstv-slow-scan-tv/id387910013?mt=8
 
For transmitting, I made an effort with the receiving station to try and 
find an encoding that our apps had in common. John KK4BSM at Comers Rock 
was using an Android app that did not support all of the encoding options 
I had available in my app. We picked Scottie 1 which turned out to be a bad 
choice because it took a full minute to transfer the image if I remember 
correctly. All that I did was key the microphone and hold it near the 
earpiece on my iPhone, and then hit the transmit button in the app.

For receiving SSTV images, my app is always attempting to decode SSTV data 
heard via the built-in microphone on the iPhone when it is running in the 
foreground. When I was ready to exchange SSTV pictures with John KK4BSM at 
Comers Rock, I simply advised him via UHF voice that I was ready and then 
held my phone near the speaker. The app detected the encoding used by the 
transmitting station (Robot, Scottie, etc) automatically. I didn't have to 
do any configuration to it. This worked pretty good. It would, of course, 
be better if I could pipe the audio directly into the iPhone. With the 
lesson learned from my transmission, we picked a Robot encoding that would 
sacrifice image quality but deliver the image much less time.

The big lesson learned for me is that smaller and lesser quality images 
are better. The amount of accurate information that can be conveyed in a 
small black and white image is going to be much better than trying to push 
a large full color image over the air. Example: the app I was using had a 
Black & White 8 second encoding available. The images were thumbnail sized, 
but it was very easy to see what I was looking at and the quality when 
tested at home in the shack was excellent.

I will defer to John for the app that he was using on his end at Comers 
Rock. It would also be neat to see the image that he received if possible.

Glenn Crissman