I have only had my HAM Technician License since April 30th of this year and was able to pick up and listen to Commander Hadfield's conversation with the kids at Innalik School, Inukjuak, Nunavut, Canada today. This was a pretty kewl thing for me as I only have a hand held right now. I called my daughter outside who was able to listen in for a lil bit but she ran back inside after only a few moments. Its pretty chilly out today and she didn't have a jacket on. I look forward to listening in again and maybe making a contact sometime. Thanks for what you do and for taking the time to talk to us down on lil ole planet Earth!

Scott M
KD2DYS

There may be two new hams heading to the ISS but with a broken radio up there, there may as well be a hundred on their way !!

I find it incredible that in an international multi billion $ project the TM-D710 hasn't worked for months nor has there been any attempt to replace it....Kenwood must be very proud.

If only ground control/the crew spent as much time on the radio as they do urine testing then we might have speech or aprs contacts.

Am I wrong?

Cheers Dave UZN

This morning 05:13 (local time) or 22:13 (UTC), I saw ISS moving in the sky from south west to the north east... Fantastic!!!
Regards
Bin
YB3MBN / 1

Hi John,

The answer is on this website.
Above in the menu you see Frequencies.

Cor PD0RKC.

Wow, I didn't knew the antenna had to be optimized for 145 MHz. I don't know too much about radio communication, just the very basic. Though I should've learned something in my childhood because back then I was kind of fascinated by my dads CB equipment :-)

Thanks for pointing that out.

Other point of interest is the base of the antenna in your nicely draw picture.
Usually the 11mtr (27MHz) antenna has a matching network in the base of the antenna (just above the magnetic foot).
These networks are optimized for 27MHz, not for 145 MHz.

In other words: please be sure the antenna works on VHF (145MHz) also!
If not: google for "1/4 lambda groundplane", "J-antenna" of "Slim-Jim". (without the quotation marks)

Very nice. Thank you so much PD0RKC.
73s

Hello N7CJT,

Current crew is not doing random contacts.
If you want to listen to the ISS crew in voice the only posibility is listen
them when they are doing ariss school contacts above USA.
AJ9N often post information on the sarex mail reflector.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/threads.html
Downlink: 145.800Mhz.

Aprs packet is also fun to do via the ISS digipeater.
Simplex: 145.825Mhz

73s Cor PD0RKC

First thing I noticed is you typed 145.20 for the downlink and that should be 145.80 (typo?).

Second, ISS is not a repeater on this frequency set. This is the general contact frequency for the crew over most of the world (ITU region 1 is 145.20 up and 145.80 down) but is only active when the crew is active. That activity level varies from extremes of nothing to weekly depending on the personal interest of the crew member. Right now we appear to be in the nothing support range.

Packet operations occur on 145.825 and usually when that is active then the crew is not.

There are several other satellites that operate on 145.825. PCSAT and FAST are a couple plus UO-11 makes digital sounds on that frequency as well.

And

Thanks for your comment. I tried to contact them, but never received any responses. And If Hadfield and Marshburn read this, I hope they won't forget that there are thousands of hams down here who have been waiting patiently for a contact, and maybe they can find some spar time to get on the air!