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What to listen to · Amateur radio

SSTV on 80 metres: 3730 kHz at night

The 80 m SSTV frequency comes alive after dark: 3730 kHz, lower sideband, pictures from a few hundred kilometres around the receiver, with the whole of Europe within reach on long winter nights.

Frequency3730 kHz
ModeLSB

What you hear

The two-minute warble of SSTV, explained in the main article, on the lowest band where pictures are common. 3730 kHz carries nothing by day; after sunset the first pictures appear from stations within a few hundred kilometres, and in the middle of a winter night they come from the far ends of Europe. Static and fading leave more marks on the images than on 20 m, so a clean picture here is worth more.

Who transmits and why

Amateurs who stay on the air after 40 m has gone quiet, and local groups that meet on 80 m anyway and swap a picture or two between conversations. 3730 kHz is the agreed SSTV frequency for the band in Europe; as on all bands below 10 MHz, the transmissions use the lower sideband.

When and where to listen

From an hour after sunset until dawn, best from October to March; summer nights are short and noisy. Choose a receiver within a thousand kilometres of where you expect the pictures from, since the band rarely reaches further. The catalogue tunes 3730 kHz in LSB.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Amateur radio → SSTV 80 m. The program picks a public receiver covering 3730 kHz and tunes it in LSB. Switch the mode to SSTV to see the pictures: below 10 MHz the program decodes on the lower sideband by itself and paints the image line by line. No receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed.

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