Tag Archives: ISS

Listening to the International Space Station (ARISS) with a Yaesu VX-3

ISS

Yesterday, my buddy Eric (WD8RIF) sent the following message:

“Take your girls outside with an HT and listen to the ARISS pass in just about 10 minutes. The downlink freq is 145.800.”

Though I was in the middle of another project, I took Eric’s advice: I grabbed my Yaesu VX-3, corralled my daughters and ran outside. Eric’s message was already eight minutes old when I read it, so I only had about two minutes to get ready.

My Everyday Carry (EDC) pack, loaded with all of the essentials.

My Everyday Carry (EDC) pack, loaded with all of the essentials.

Fortunately, I always have a Yaesu VX-3R loaded with fresh batteries in my EDC pack (above).

Official NASA portrait of British astronaut Timothy Peake. Photo Date: August 28, 2013. Location: Building 8, Room 183 - Photo Studio. Photographer: Robert Markowitz

Official NASA portrait of British astronaut Timothy Peake. Photographer: Robert Markowitz

With the VX-3 tuned to 145.8 MHz, we waited as the ISS made its way above the horizon. The downlink audio of astronaut Tim Peake (KG5BVI) communicating with Walter Jackson Elementary in Decatur, Alabama, started to punch through the static after a minute or two. We listened the entire time we had line-of-sight to the ISS–about five minutes or so.  We were pretty deep in a valley at that point, so I’m pleased we were able to catch even that much of a pass.

Of course, we could only hear one side of the conversation: the downlink from the International Space Station.

It was a memorable event for my girls who have seen ISS passes at night, but had never heard live audio from an astronaut before.

Here’s a short video of two of the exchanges we heard:

(Click here to view on YouTube.)

Eric pointed me to the ARISS “Upcoming Contacts” (http://www.ariss.org/upcoming-contacts.html) page where future ARISS QSOs are listed. Evidently, this particular ARISS QSO was the third Eric had monitored in two weeks.

Pretty much any receiver that can tune to 145.80 MHz FM–or a VHF scanner–can hear the ARISS downlink as long as the ISS is passing overhead during the transmission. Of course, if you have a high-gain antenna that can track the ISS as it moves across the sky, you’ll get even better results than I did with my basic rubber duck antenna.

My advice?  If you want to impress a child (or your inner child–!) find a little time to listen to a future ARISS QSO!

Indeed, the next step for me is to see if I can propose an ARISS QSO for our school group!

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Sean’s recording of an International Space Station EVA

ISSSean Gilbert, WRTH’s International Editor, recently shared this audio he originally recorded on June 19, 2014. Sean writes:

With all the interest in space and the ISS at the moment, I thought I would share a recording I made on 19 June 2014 @ 1715 UTC. This is from the Russian part of the ISS and the audio (which is in Russian) is of the cosmonauts talking during a spacewalk (EVA as they are known). The person speaking is actually in space, outside of the ISS. The audio begins about 2 mins into the recording and lasts for about 5 mins.

[Listen via the embedded player below, or click here for the MP3 version.]

[…]This was received on 143.625MHz NFM (+/- a few kHz due to doppler shift). Receiver here was a Funcube Dongle Pro + into a 2 element circular polarised turnstile in the attic. Signal was lost at a distance of 2000km (to the East of my location in IO92ma) at 3 degree elevation. Altitude of ISS was 418km above earth. 

Sean-Gilbert-ISS-Screen-Cap-Spectrum

The image [above] shows a grab of the signal, exhibiting doppler shift due to the ISS orbit in relation to the earth.

 […]I would be interested to know what they are saying. […]To me this was far more exciting than receiving SSTV pictures from the ISS. I may never hear another EVA – I am just thankful that I found this as it was an announced/schedules EVA.

That is very cool, indeed, Sean! At some point, I must make an effort to venture up to the VHF neighborhood and attempt to hear the ISS.

I hope there’s a Russophone reader out there who can help Sean interpret the EVA dialog! Please comment!

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Robert’s new radio blog

SX-99-DialSWLing Post reader, Robert Gulley (AK3Q), has just informed me that he’s started a radio blog on ak3q.com.  Robert notes:

“One of the recurring themes will be on the importance and relevance of shortwave radio, and nothing denotes this more than your work with Ears To Our World.

[…]Also, if interested I have an audio file of a voice CQ call from this past weekend’s ISS special event, along with audio of an SSTV image being sent. The cosmonaut makes a CQ call (after which getting over my shock I returned a call); he calls again and another station nearby tries to get him, and then immediately an SSTV image is transmitted.”

Very cool, Robert! I’ve always wanted to work the ISS, but never have managed to do it so far. But, hey, there’s always tomorrow!

Thanks, also, for mentioning Ears To Our World–so far, this year, we’ve distributed radios in Kenya, Cameroon, and South Sudan. There are still remote and impoverished parts of the world that benefit from the lifeline of information radio brings to them.

Readers, check out Robert’s blog at ak3q.com!

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SSTV from the International Space Station this weekend

ISSThis is a VHF news item, not shortwave, but many SWLing Post readers have wideband SDRs, HT’s and scanners that cover this portion of the VHF band. Unique opportunity:

(Source: AMSAT bb)

40 years ago this week, the historic joint Apollo-Soyuz mission was conducted. Apollo-Soyuz (or Soyuz-Apollo in Russia) represented the first joint USA-Soviet mission and set the stage for follow-on Russia-USA space collaboration on the Space Shuttle, Mir Space Station and the International Space Station. The Soyuz and Apollo vehicles were docked from July 17-19, 1975, during which time joint experiments and activities were accomplished with the 3 USA astronauts and 2 Soviet Cosmonauts on-board. Apollo-Soyuz was the final mission of the Apollo program and the last USA human spaceflight mission until the first space shuttle mission in 1981.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of this historic international event, the ARISS team has developed a series of 12 Slow Scan Television (SSTV) images that will be sent down for reception by schools, educational organizations and ham radio operators, worldwide. The SSTV images are planned to start sometime Saturday morning, July 18 and run through Sunday July 19. These dates are tentative and are subject to change. The SSTV images can be received on 145.80 MHz and displayed using several different SSTV computer programs that are available on the internet.

We encourage you to submit your best received SSTV images to:
http://spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/submit.php

The ARISS SSTV image gallery will post the best SSTV images received from this event at:
http://spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php

Also, as a special treat, on Saturday July 18 the ISS Cosmonauts will take time out to conduct an ARISS contact with students attending the Moon Day/Frontiers of Flight Museum event in Dallas Texas. This Russian Cosmonaut-USA Student contact is planned to start around 16:55 UTC through the W6SRJ ground station located in Santa Rosa, California. ARISS will use the 145.80 MHz voice frequency downlink (same as the SSTV downlink) for the Moon Day contact.

For more information on ARISS, please go to our web site: www.ariss.org

The ARISS international team would like to thank our ARISS-Russia colleague, Sergey Samburov, RV3DR, for his leadership on this historic commemoration.

Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO

ARISS International Chair

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