Houston we have......

[SCPD]

I got a couple of emails from fellow scanner dudes south of the boarder claiming they can and have heard the space shuttle with little effort, I'm wondering if these guys are on crack or is their some truth behind the statement

I heard a fellow ham west of Edmonton has talked with the shuttle a couple of years ago on the ham bands.

Anyway, has anyone ever caught space shuttle stuff? here is a list of frequencies, worth giving it a try???/




259.7 (AM) - Shuttle Air-Ground Primary -
296.8 (AM) - Shuttle A-G Backup and also Orbiter - Suit during spacewalk
279.0 (AM) - Shuttle A-G Backup and Suit - Suit and Suit - Orbiter

251.875 (AM) - Shuttle ?

 

[SCPD]

Doug ..

I would get some satellite tracking software and you can track the shuttle and give it a try. I dont know if they will be doing any amateur stuff on this mission but im sure that wouldnt be too hard to find out.

I know a local had spoken to MIR when it was up and flying .. but I dont know about the shuttle. But it would be cool .. and the frequencies are well publicized.

 

[Jeffn8wb]

The ISS also has ham gear on board. It usually comes in fairly well with just a vertical antenna on the roof, however working them is another story. If you are licensed, give it a try. Your chances of making the contact are low without a beam that can track the movements of the station, but you never know. You may get lucky.

 

[Napalm]

259.700 was heard on the shuttle's first orbit over the UK, before Houston told them they could take UHF Air to Air off.

 

[DX-300]

I've heard conversations between Hams and the ISS on 145.8000 in the not too distant past, but most of the time though the ISS is spitting out packet on that frequency. As far as difficulty went for recieving this just to give you an idea, I was only using the stock antenna my scanner came with. I even bet you'd still have alot of luck with a coat hanger as an antenna! Of course the ISS must be right above your vicinity though in order for you to hear them well as they usually fade out about when their past line of sight on the horizon.

The Nasa site and a few other sources have programs and schedules for when the ISS will be over any given city.

73's 'n happy monitoring!

 

[SCPD]

I've heard conversations between Hams and the ISS on 145.8000 in the not too distant past, but most of the time though the ISS is spitting out packet on that frequency. As far as difficulty went for recieving this just to give you an idea, I was only using the stock antenna my scanner came with. I even bet you'd still have alot of luck with a coat hanger as an antenna! Of course the ISS must be right above your vicinity though in order for you to hear them well as they usually fade out about when their past line of sight on the horizon.

The Nasa site and a few other sources have programs and schedules for when the ISS will be over any given city.

73's 'n happy monitoring!

Thanks guys, I did get a .wav file of the shuttle heard over the North Carolina area. A little scratchy, otherwise pretty clear.

 

[jimlawrence]

Ditto on hearing the shuttle on UHF over northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada. Most of the time when they're headed to the ISS, they'll launch to the northeast and they can be heard on the ascent. However, because of their high speed, the window of opportunity to hear the shuttle is very short, around four to five minutes from horizon to horizon I seem to recall.

I seem to also recall the ISS worked a voice downlink freq in the 143 MHz range. I haven't monitored that freq recently but up until a couple of years ago, I used to hear voice traffic mostly in Russian on it. Does anyone recall the exact freq.? It's something like 143.625 but I could be wrong about that. I wonder if there's still any voice traffic on it these days?