OpenTuner for HamTV

The OpenTuner software is designed to use a PicoTuner or a MiniTiouner together with a PC running Windows 10 or Windows 11. It is the only Windows software that supports the PicoTuner.

Settings for Receiving HamTV

OpenTuner was primarily designed to receive transmissions from the QO-100 geostationary satellite and needs some settings changed to enable reception of HamTV. The latest version can be downloaded in a zip file from this page: https://github.com/tomvdb/open_tuner/releases/tag/V0.B. Once you have downloaded the software, unzip it to a new folder.

Make sure that you have your tuner powered-up and connected by USB to your PC. Double-click the file opentuner.exe (which may just be labelled opentuner on your system) to start the software; no installation process is required. You may want to create a desktop or taskbar shortcut to this file. The first window you will see when the software opens is this:

Click on the tick boxes next to "BATC Wideband Spectrum (QO-100)" and "BATC Wideband Web Chat (QO-100)" to un-tick them. Ignore the greyed-out "ISS HamTV" tick box - this is not implemented or required.

The page should look like this. Now click on the "Source Settings" button. The window should look like this:

Select "PicoTuner" if you are using a PicoTuner, or "FTDI Module" if you are using an older MiniTiouner. Set the Tuner 1 Freq Offset to 0 and the Tuner 2 Freq Offset to 0. Set the LNB A and B Supply Defaults to Off (unless you need them) and set both Tuner Default RF Inputs to A (the top socket on the tuner, furthest from the PCB connector). The end result looks something like this.