Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (07/09/84)
I'm interested in receiving space shuttle television broadcasts directly on my TV. I recently heard of a low frequency receiver attachment you can put on your TV to receive shuttle television transmissions. Apparently, this is a $14 device you hook on to your TV antenna where it connects to the TV. What you see are the TV broadcasts shown on the news - the shuttle broadcasts television images to substations on earth, and the substations relay them around the world at very low frequencies. Does anyone have any information on such a device - where can I obtain one, and for how much? Has anyone used one? Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne.MTS%UMich.MTS.Mailnet@MIT-Multics
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (07/12/84)
Except in the special case where local ham groups rebroadcast space transmissions such as Voyager images (in which case you can get devices to convert the fast scan ham TV freqs to normal broadcast VHF/UHF for your TV -- but they still cost lots more than $14) there aren't any simple ways to receive "space flight" transmissions. The actual shuttle transmissions are all at disgustingly high frequencies (e.g. S-band) and are not to be received with cheap equipment. More and more of these transmissions are digitized in any case. There is no generalized "local rebroadcasting" of these images. NASA often uses a satellite transponder to feed events to the media, but you will see what they want you to see, not what's coming directly from the shuttle. Still, it's a lot more than any single media source will ever show you, and it doesn't have the blabbing commentators. You need a regular satellite earth station to receive it, and the feed isn't always there -- only when something significant is happening. Probably not worth the effort to receive. That business about generalized local retransmission and $14 converters is bull. --Lauren--