By Miles Mann WF1F, MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

MIR Status:
The Mir crew began sending SSTV images last Sunday and Monday. The SSTV system was active for a total of  approximately 5-10 hours. 
If you have received any good quality images from Mir via SSTV, can you please send them to my email address wf1f@amsat.org
Please do not send images to large mailing lists such as sarex or amsat because they would bog down the internet too much.  I will post the best on the MAREX-NA web page http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex/mirshots/

One of the reasons for the sporadic amateur radio activity from the Mir station is because the Mir crew has temporally shifted their SLEEP CYCLE.  I have posted below the Normal sleep cycle for the Mir crew.
However, this week the crew has shifted their sleep cycle several hours.  This week the Mir crew are going to sleep at approximately 0900 UTC, and are waking up around 1700 UTC.

(Normal) Mir Crew Sleep / Wake times:
The Mir crew is using a time Sleep/wake cycle which I will call Mir-Time (MT).  Mir-Time is UTC time plus 3 hours.  Mir-Time does not make any adjustments for daylight-savings time.
Here is a list of an approximate time schedule for the Mir crew.

The Mir crew sleeps from approximately 19:00 UTC, until 04:00 UTC.
Mir crew is awake and working from approximately 04:00 UTC - 18:00 UTC
Another way to think of it is, take the UTC time and add 3 hours to equal Mir-time.

Mir Amateur Radio Status:
Intermittent Voice and SSTV on 145.985 FM Simplex (SSTV mode Robot 36).
We are planing to begin testing the Personal Message System soon (packet mail).

SSTV:
The Mir Space Station has begun activating the amateur radio projects, including the MAREX-NA SSTV project.  The International Space Station (Alpha) may also be installing a new MAREX-NA SSTV called SpaceCam1 system as early as Q4 2000.  Now is the time to start getting your satellite station  ready to transmit and receive Slow Scan Television signals. I have provided a few web links, which can help you, get your satellite station ready to receive SSTV images.
The tentative SSTV/Packet Mir broadcast school is:
Saturday, Sunday and Monday SSTV. 145.985 FM Simplex
Tuesday - Friday  1200 baud AX.25 Packet 145.985 FM Simplex

Suggested Receiving Station for Satellite SSTV Images.
http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex/MirSSTVStation.htm

MAREX-NA home page
http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex

SSTV Repeaters:
The MAREX-NA team has posted some information regarding testing of the new SpaceCam1 SSTV software.
http://www.siliconpixels.com/marex/RepeaterOperations.htm

Home for Mir SSTV Images:
Hi Everyone:

My name is Miles and I am the Director of Operations at MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division). As some of  you may have seen, the Slow Scan TV system on board the Russian Space Station Mir has been reactivated.  The system sends out a very strong signal and can be hear with a very modest Amateur Radio station.  We at Marex-na believe in the slogan Keep It Simple.

There are may people and school systems which do not have access to Amateur Radio equipment but would still like to see the images and lean more about space and living in space. To help improve access to the images, we are looking for a University to take on the job of being the official Web page for the large library of images expected to be arriving from Mir.

These images will need to be collected, sorted, labeled and posted for easy web access. Each week we expect a percentage of the image, sent to be received by Amateur Radio stations around the world.  The world will then be viewing your web to see the latest images from Mir.

If you want to be part of space exploration and help simulate educational curiosity in children world wide, then we have a job for you.

Please contact me with your proposal and ability to support such a project.
73 Miles

Copyright 2000 Miles Mann, All Rights Reserved.  This document may be freely distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers), Usenet, and World-Wide-Web.  It may not be reproduced for profit including, but not limited to, CD ROMs, books, and/or other commercial outlets without prior written consent from the author.
Images received from the MAREX-NA SSTV system on the Russian Space Station Mir are considered public domain and may be freely distributed, without prior permission.

DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F