Slow Scan Television (SSTV) with the Icom-IC705, MMSSTV software, and KiwiSDR

January 16, 2022 by KM1NDY

It’s a blustery night in New England, a global pandemic, and I am a bit under the weather myself. A great excuse to stay in and learn a new ham radio mode! Earlier this week I was participating in a 2M traffic net when I heard another ham mention he was getting into slow scan television. Tah dah! The gears in my mind turned. SSTV had never caught my attention before. It seemed, well, hard. A bit of complicated boogey man that I just didn’t feel like tackling…

I had learned about KiwiSDR from another ham buddy of mine. In essence, KiwiSDR is a way for people around the world to listen in on someone else’s radio station. You can see what I mean by going to KiwiSDR.com/public. Simply pick any one of the participating radio stations that are live streaming their KiwiSDR receivers onto the internet. Once you choose your station, a waterfall display and control box will pop up. The controls may take a bit to figure out, but just keep hitting the buttons until you do. Note, in the picture above, I’ve hidden the control panel to the side.

Now let’s find some SSTV! Click on the “extensions” tab (single asterisk and arrow) and select SSTV. Another control box will pop up on the bottom left. First off, choose the band you want to try (double asterisks and arrow). During the day, my understanding is 14.230 usb is the best place to look. I took the screen shot above at night, therefore there are very few signals on 20M. If you hit the “Test Image” button, you will begin to hear a recorded SSTV transmission, and the picture will begin to decode. To simplify, SSTV is the ham radio way of transmitting images over a radio transmission.

Now, lets dive a bit deeper… How do I get set up to transmit and receive SSTV? Well, the first stop is to https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php where you can download MMSSTV software. I cannot vouch for anything you download, but it worked for me. I picked the .exe version 13A. The software has not been updated since 2010! There is an update to MMSSTV called Yoniq but I have not used it.

As soon as you download the software, you will notice that it is hearing the ambient environment through your computer microphone. You can take advantage of this just by holding a device that is playing the transmission of an SSTV scan near your computer microphone. In fact, the SSTV decoded picture that you see at the top of this page was from my cell phone’s speaker placed near my computer and MMTV did the decoding of it.

Next, I wanted to get my IC-705 configured to work with MMSSTV. Turns out if you simply attach the IC-705 to the computer via the usb cable, it will not communicate with the MMSSTV software. A quick googling of “MMSSTV and IC705” pops up three very important sources:

https://m0iax.com/2021/01/09/set-up-mmsstv-and-the-ic-705/

https://www.vk3dan.ninja/2017/06/04/icom-ic-7300-rig-control-for-mmsstv/

https://www.g4ytd.co.uk/2021/04/19/mmsstv-and-the-ic705/

VK3DAN worked out the rig control between Icom IC-7300 and MMSSTV. M0IAX modified this to work with the Icom IC-705. And G4YTD further refined it for the IC-705.

To cut to the chase, the M0IAX instructions are what worked for me.

The gist of it is:

Download MMSSTV software
Locate the MMSSTV.ini file
Modify the MMSSTV.ini file with the code given by M0IAX (I used notepad as an editor)
Make sure your correct com port is listed on the .ini file. My IC-705 typically is found on COM 8 or COM 9.
Save the MMSSTV.ini file (I saved it in notepad by typing out MMSSTV.ini otherwise it would save it as a text file. It should ask you to overwrite the existing file).

Not to diminish the work of M0IAX, VK3DAN, and G4YTD, but to make sure to preserve the necessary .ini code changes needed for communication between the 12 yr old MMSSTV software and the IC-705, I have included the code changes below. I hope the original authors do not mind and will reach out if they do. Make sure the COM port for your particular computer is correct (highlighted in red). In essence, cut and paste these sections into your original MMSSTV.ini file. Make sure you remove the original code first!

[RADIO]
PortName=COM8
BaudRate=9600
BitLen=1
Stop=1
Parity=0
flwXON=0
flwCTS=0
usePTT=0
ByteWait=0
Cmdxx=164
CmdInit=
CmdRx=\$FEFExxE01C0000FD\
CmdTx=\$FEFExxE01C0001FD\
FileGNR=
OpenGNR=0
PollType=3
PollInterval=5

[RadioMenu]
Menus=10
Cap1=3.640 MHz LSB – Aus. Call
Cmd1=\$FEFExxE00500006403FD\$FEFExxE02600000101FD
Cap2=7.043 MHz LSB – Intl Call
Cmd2=\$FEFExxE00500300407FD\$FEFExxE02600000101FD
Cap3=7.170 MHz LSB – Australia, USA Call
Cmd3=\$FEFExxE00500001707FD\$FEFExxE02600000101FD
Cap4=10.132 MHz USB – Call USB
Cmd4=\$FEFExxE00500201310FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD
Cap5=14.230 MHz USB – Intl Call
Cmd5=\$FEFExxE00500002314FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD
Cap6=14.233 MHz USB – Digital Call USB
Cmd6=\$FEFExxE00500302314FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD
Cap7=14.240 MHz USB – Euro Call
Cmd7=\$FEFExxE00500002414FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD
Cap8=21.340 MHz USB – Intl Call
Cmd8=\$FEFExxE00500003421FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD
Cap9=28.680 MHz USB – Intl Call
Cmd9=\$FEFExxE00500006828FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD
Cap10=50.950 MHz USB – Intl Call
Cmd10=\$FEFExxE00500009550FD\$FEFExxE02600010101FD

Now, connect your IC-705 to the computer, open up the MMSSTV software, and under the “Options” tab open up “Setup MMSSTV(O)”.

Under the “TX” window pick your correct COM port.

Under the “MISC” window, select the USB Audio Codec for the IC-705 for both “In” and “Out”. Note, that I am not showing the right choices below because my radio is not plugged in, but this is where you put them.

Finally, move over to the “RadioCommand” tab and choose the correct COM port.

You should now be able to open the “RadioCommand” tab and pick a frequency of your choice. This should now sync with the IC-705! It is a bit more work to figure out the nuances of the MMSSTV program, but not too bad. I transmitted my first picture cq last night. I used only about 3 watts of the Ic-705. But it appeared to work. I tried to see if I could find myself on one of the KiwiSDR receivers, but to no avail however.

I next plan on syncing MMSSTV with the IC-705, and transmitting at about 50 watts using my RM Italy MLA100 100 watt amplifier. This way I feel the IC-705 will be better protected from the 100% duty cycle that SSTV transmits at.

I am definitely no expert, but I think this could be my new favorite mode!!!

As always,

KM1NDY

A little update:

I did indeed transmit SSTV with my 705 and amp at about 50 watts. I ended up having my first SSTV qso with Peter KC1HHO. Who, interestingly, was the local ham who had given me the idea to try SSTV in the first place! Here are some pics of our exchange…