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

The crew of the space station Mir is still very busy. They have not had time to activate the amateur radio equipment due to their heavy work load. All of the Mir systems appear to be working normal, Air, water, heat, electricity.  
The crew is in the process of installing new equipment and upgrading old equipment.   The crew did find and repair a small air leak on a hatch valve.  The air pressure is holding steady.
I was told that one of the reasons for all of the hard work this week, is to prepare the Mir space station for 'several more years of service'.

SSTV IMAGES:
We are very interested in getting copies of these Mir SSTV JPG images to post on our web pages.  If you received a good high quality image (with out much noise) then could you please send the image directly to marex at wf1f@amsat.org
We will save all images and post the best images received each week on our Mir-shots web page.
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/

Submission format:
Images must be of good quality, with minimal noise.

Include your full name and information.
Name, call sign, email address, SSTV decoding system, receiving antenna gain, location where you were when u received the image (state, country)

Image format JPG only please
File name:
We will be sorting the images by file name.  It is important for you to use the recommended format exactly.
M (Date YYMMDD) u (UTC time HHMM) (Your call sign) (Optional short description) .jpg

Example:
M990621u1627wf1fGreatlakes.jpg
M990621u1631wf1fCrewDrink.jpg
M000423u0821wf1fJogging.jpg

The date and time are in UTC time format.  If your computer uses a Local time, please convert the time in the file name to the correct UTC date and time.  The date and time will also help us sort out what activities were taking place on Mir during the images.  In one 4-shot sequence from 1999, we could see the Mir crew removing cables and other equipment while they were getting ready to put Mir to sleep for a few months.

Picture Over-Lay text:
It requested you do not place any over-lay text on the Mir SSTV image.
However, if you must, please keep the number of works small and the point size the text very small.  Any images with large amount of text will not be posted.

Example:
April 17, 2000 1535UTC Mir control Room W8ZCF

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 as soon as the Mir crew has some free time (packet mail).  At the present time the Mir crew is VERY VERY busy with other projects. Please be patient.

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

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