r/SSTV

Hi everyone!

So I've been trying to get the SSTV images from the ISS but I couldn't get any signal whatsoever. Here's how I proceeded:

Gear: I have a Baofeng UV-5R with stock antenna, and a Hackrf One SDR with the stock retractable antenna with computer running gqrx.

I waited for the station's passes, got a few nice ones with 80°, 65° and 40° max altitude. For some of them I could see the station directly.

I've tuned my devices to 437.550 MHz which is the frequency written on ARISS website for the current SSTV event. I planned for doppler shift by tunning to 437.555 MHz for station upcoming path, then to 437.550 when it was mostly above me. And I didn't bother with the rest of the pass because too many buildings blocked the view after that.

Demodulation set to Narrow FM on the hackrf.

I tried to keep the antennas perpendicular to the ISS position. Waited for the whole time where I had LOS (about 6-7 minutes total), but I didn't receive any signal at all, not even a blip.

Hackrf was showing noise floor at about -76,5 dB. I had squelch all the way down at -150 dB. I saw no trace on the waterfall, and the recording is only noise.

Have I made an obvious mistake or am I missing something? Or is it simply because the noise floor is too high in my area?