SSTV Costs

Initially, all SSTV equiptment was home disigned and built. Circuits were freely distributed at cost among interested Slow Scanners, and occasioually PCBs for monitors, cameras, and keyboards were made and distributed at cost. Even though it could take up to a year do build up a full SSTV station, there were several 1000 hams around the world enjoying SSTV with under $200 invested. Time was the biggest investment. A few companies produced P7 based equiptment during the 1970's which allowed the less technically inclined to enjoy SSTV for under $1000. In the 1980's a few commercial digital SSTV systems appeared that would cost in the neightborhood of $2000, including a color video camera for image capture.

In the late 90's SSTV hardware took a drastic turn towards equiptment provided by your local computer store. Instead of hardware dedicated to just SSTV, the computer based SSTV station could work most of the other digital modes as well. A new SSTV cost item arose called software. SSTV software is unique compared to SSTV hardware because most of it lets you try it free before you buy it.

The computer can cost from $200 (or less) to $2000. The computer can be either a desktop version or a laptop. The software can be either DOS or Windows based costing from Free to about $130. An SSTV station costs far less now than it ever did.