How do you know when the ISS is transmitting SSTV

Unfortunately there is no regular schedule but there are several sources that post when an SSTV event is planned. The SSTV events are done by the Russians and they don’t announce them far in advance, sometimes only a few days, a week, maybe two weeks out if we’re lucky. They usually last a day or two, sometimes more. There is also the issue with scheduling lower priority stuff like ham radio, it can get cancelled for higher priority stuff like science, or spacecraft dockings. Between 2015-2018 there were around 2-4 worldwide events a year. There are also shorter MAI-75 sessions that usually are on for a day or less with passes that target Russia, but which of course also cover other parts of the world, though usually not North America.

ARISS-SSTV blog

The most authoritative source on ISS SSTV scheduling info is the following blog:

http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.com/

This is run by the ISS Ham Project Coordinator, Kenneth, N5VHO. Whenever an event is planned he updates it with the start and stop times, as well as other relevant information.

Here are instructions on How to get email notifications for upcoming ISS SSTV events.

Other sources

https://amsat-uk.org/
https://twitter.com/RF2Space <— This is run by the same guy who runs the ARISS SSTV blog, Ham Project Coordinator Kenneth, N5VHO
https://twitter.com/r4uab <— A Russian ham radio operator who sometimes seems to know about Russian ISS ham radio activities before anyone else. You'll have to translate it if you don't know Russian. :-)
http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
http://www.ariss.org/ <— As of 2018-04-17 this site is not updated often but it has been a source of SSTV info in the past.

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