international space station frequencies

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rdale

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No, only if they are using ham radio (not anytime soon due to missions) and that info is in the Space forum here.
 

dow35

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i live in nc and was laying in bed at 2:00 am and heard the space station broad casting on145.8000 someone asking there grid cord i think they were talking to somone in louisanna was this the space station and was wondering did anyone else hear this?
 

dow35

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i dont understand what you mean by fake please explain they talked in code like delta charlie foxtrot grid cordinates if this was a fake inlighting me i just dont get it
 

WP4MZR

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I just heard the same thing in central texas with stations from the west coast and mid-west as the ISS flew over the pacific.

The s meter rose to S5 and now is gone at 7:08PM CT
 
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ka3jjz

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Unfortunately there are hams who don't necessarily recognize that freqs like 145.8 are reserved for use (granted, by convention, not necessarily by some sort of legal rule) by others (and decide to use the freq anyway), and there are those that like to 'pretend' they're something they are not. Every hobby has its share of bad apples, sad to say.

However, it is possible they might use the old 143 mhz freq for talking to the ground controllers in Russia - I don't remember what the old freq was, but I'm sure someone can post it. It has been reported, albeit rarely, before...

You have to have some idea of what the crew schedules really are to judge whether you are really hearing the ISS or not. It's certainly possible that they could fire up 145.8 at some point, but it's hard to predict. And with the next Shuttle mission, they're going to have a full plate for work, for sure.

The schedule rdale put up shows the crew's sleep time is 2130-0600 UT, so here on the East Coast, if you hear something on 145.8 during that time, it's unlikely to be the station. I don't think the repeater mode on the Kenwood has been reinstated, at least I hadn't heard of it as yet.

73s Mike

[edit] Come to think of it, didn't I read somewhere that a bunch of hams were trying to use the station itself to reflect signals? If so, at least some of the traffic on 145.8 might be involved in this.
 
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WP4MZR

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Here is some more info about the ISS voice RPT

http://www.issfanclub.com/node/6977

From issfanclub.com:
"A report from 9W2QC from Malaysia indicates the crossband repeater on ISS is currently active. It should stay operational until the unit must be shut down for the undocking operations of the Progress 27 on Feb 4. Frequencies are 437.800 MHz uplink and 145.800 MHz downlink. Keep in mind the extreme Doppler on the uplink and it is highly recommended that you operate full duplex to see if you are making it through or interfering with another station unknowingly.

Enjoy and good luck.

Kenneth - N5VHO"
 
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ka3jjz

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That's outstanding news, Ken. On our wiki we have the ARRL link for hints on how to use the voice repeater - it's 3 years old but the article details are still very current. Time to put 145.8 back in the radios!

http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2004/10/06/1/?nc=1

Keep in mind that the radio is normally turned off during Shuttle approaches, as well as when the astronauts are on spacewalks for safety reasons.

Thanks for the update 73s Mike
 

rdale

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To clarify - you were hearing the repeater that is onboard ISS, not the actual astronauts.
 

dow35

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just to let everyone know at 1:00 last night i heard what i think was the iss again on 145.8000 saying november2 november10 k2 mike oscar and something about japan its kind of fuzzy anybody else hear it?
 

rdale

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I thought this was made clear... The astronauts were asleep, so unless they were sleep-talking it wasn't them. There is a repeated on the space station, so users on the ground can talk to each other by chatting when it's overhead. Either you heard that, or you heard people on the ground messing around. Look at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov and the realtime tracker as it will show the position of ISS. If it's not near you, it's not them you are hearing.
 

WB2UZR

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dow35 said:
just to let everyone know at 1:00 last night i heard what i think was the iss again on 145.8000 saying november2 november10 k2 mike oscar and something about japan its kind of fuzzy anybody else hear it?


You were probably hearing ham callsigns with phonetics, hence the "November 2" etc. The ISS repeater has been active, so if you check with a tracking program and the ISS is overhead, that's what you are hearing!

It is relatively easy to hear, so keep listening when it's overhead!!

Scott/WB2UZR
 

bagmouse7

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This is great news that the repeater is back in service.
Thanks for posting this dow35.
 

WP4MZR

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Dow35, great findings..

I usually keep the packet link 145.825 on memory and like to observe how the signal strength and doppler behave as the ISS and other sats fly by. Im not sure what the elevation was last night, but it was coming in very strong. It didnt showed up in heavens-above.com and the nasa tracking looks to be down.
 
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ka3jjz

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I could be off here, but last I heard, packet comms were being held on 145.825, while the voice activity remains on 145.8; with that and the 430 mhz freq for the repeater.

It will be quite interesting to find out whether the astronauts have put the FT100 and the tape antennas that went up on a recent shuttle mission into active use. It kinda sounds like that might be the case. It's starting to get interesting again...

73s Mike
 
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