NASA Ames Radio Club
Corner of the Ames Amateur Radio Club (AARC) shack. Rack on left contains our video items, also seen is a large screen TV set and another set with a VCR in case we want to tape something from NASA-TV.
Leftside monitor with raw video fed into ATV transmitter and rightside monitor the received ATV picture. VCR below is used for the receiver (421.25MHz or cable ch 57). There are other items such as a video switcher, video processor, vectorscope, etc.
The Videonics titlemaker with a scrolling title, "NASA-TV retransmission from Ames Research Center... " Behind the Videonics is a Decade Engineering titlemaker that imprints are station callsign NA6MF in lower righthand corner.
The video quad setup later so we can view all four NASA-TV channels on one screen.
The Videolynx Z23B 1.2GHz video uplink transmitter to K6BEN-ATV repeater. An Icom IC28 was used for the audio uplink.
Two mobile VCRs used to receive two of the NASA-TV channels. These VCRs are 12VDC, cable ready, that were purchased for ATV field ops.
Rear of the mobile VCRs.
Day of launch, July 4th, the media with their ENG vans showed up at the NASA Ames visitor center. These vans would be the ultimate for ATV field use but they are not cheap so most likely you will never see any ATV ham people owning one of these. Note: no this media event was not "sponsored" by Cingular.
2-meter J-pole erected to 40 feet. This antenna was used for re-transmitting the audio portion on our club frequency (145.585) which is separate from the ATV system. The J-pole was made by American Legion Post 380, it is the best 2-meter ever. No others are comparable in performance. The SWR is 1.000. Unfortunately the Post 380 no longer makes them (key designers and machinists have become Silent Keys).
For more information on ATV from the AARC, see