Introduction

QSSTV-Experimental is an amateur-radio program for sending and receiving slow-scan television (SSTV) pictures and digital SSTV (HAMDRM, also called DSSTV or DRM) pictures through your computer's sound card.

What it does

• Receives and transmits SSTV in the common mode families: Martin, Scottie, Robot, PD, Wraase SC2, Pasokon (P3/P5/P7), AVT, B/W, FAX480, and the MP/MR/ML/MC families. See SSTV modes.
• Receives and transmits HAMDRM digital SSTV, which carries a compressed picture with error correction. See Digital SSTV (DRM).
• Keeps received and transmitted pictures in a gallery with a viewer.
• Has a TX image editor with templates, macros, text and image items, plus stock and template libraries.
• Controls your rig through Hamlib CAT, a serial RTS/DTR line, or VOX, and can be remote-controlled over XML-RPC.
• Sends CW and waterfall identification, and shows a spectrum and waterfall display.
• Decodes SSTV from recorded audio files, from the window or from the command line. See Decode from file and command line.
• Calibrates your sound card's sample rate from WWV time ticks, NTP, or another SSTV station. See Calibration.

What is different from QSSTV 9.5.11

QSSTV-Experimental is a fork of QSSTV 9.5.11. The main differences are listed below; the project README has the complete list.

• Runs on Windows (64-bit, Windows 10 1809 or later) and Linux (x86-64 and arm64), including a self-contained AppImage that bundles Qt 6 and its other runtime libraries. A macOS build is not available yet.
• Decode from audio file (WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, AAC), in the window or headless with --batch.
• New SSTV modes: JB60 (about 61 s, color) and PD120W (a 16:9 widescreen PD120).
• Sample-rate calibration from WWV, NTP, or the slant of a received picture.
• Stitched grid pictures (1x2, 2x1, 2x2) for the larger modes, and pan/zoom framing of the TX picture.
• Multi-select in the gallery, image-viewer zoom and pan, clipboard copy and paste of pictures, and WebP, AVIF and HEIC image support.
• ADIF logbook broadcast over UDP, a DRM MER readout, and a number of receive, transmit and DRM bug fixes.
• Ported from Qt 5/qmake to Qt 6/CMake. Audio, webcam and serial PTT now go through Qt, so one code path serves every operating system.

Credits and licence

QSSTV was written by Johan Maes, ON4QZ (copyright 2000-2019, https://www.qsl.net/o/on4qz). The HAMDRM software in QSSTV is based on RX/TXAMADRM by PA0MBO. QSSTV-Experimental is maintained by Jason Weisberger, NT0Y (https://github.com/jbdubbs/QSSTV-Experimental). It is free software released under the GNU General Public License version 3. The Credits and licenses page lists everyone and everything else that went into it.

About this guide

This guide describes the program as it is today; it is not a copy of the manual of the original QSSTV. Screenshots were taken with default settings and placeholder operator data. Menu paths are written like Options > Configuration. If something in the program does not match this guide, please report it.