[Scan-DC] upcoming high passes of the ISS expected this week over Maryland

[ka3jjz at netscape.com]

and with that, you might be able to hear - and work - them, schedules permitting, of course

http://weblogs.marylandweather.com/2007/06/space_station_flyovers_this_we.html 

I don't know what the astronaut's current schedule is (whether they're in the middle of their sleep period, or out working, ect.) but it might be possible to hear - and work - them if they are on the air. I know I read recently that they're up to their eyeballs in construction projects on the Station right now, and during such spaceflights, they routinely disable the ham station to prevent potential interference and desense issues. Guess which one wins when they're on the air - a 10 watt transmitter or a couple of hundred milliwatt one....

I have also seen that they have moved packet ops to 145.825 - I don't know if that was a permanent change, or whether they did that to facilitate testing the reloading of the Kenwood's configuration files. The nominal frequency is 145.8.

You don't need special equipment to hear - and maybe work - them. I've heard it being done with a handheld Arrow antenna and a HT. One of the MT authors managed to work Expedition 3 from his 2 meter mobile and antenna on his car during a high pass over the southern NJ area.

Remember, ham radio is a secondary project for the ISS - so it's very much a hit or miss for next week. But the conditions look promising.

Here are a few links for software to copy the packet. These are, of course, geared to the ham, and would use a nice soundcard interface, but for those that aren't, or don't have the equipment, fear not - a good shielded connection from your earphone or speaker jack to your soundcard is all that would be needed....

UISS; looks like a nice free program designed to work with the ISS and other hamsats.
http://users.belgacom.net/hamradio/uiss.htm

If you have any of these packages, you may already have the capability, with a little tweaking;

Soundcard Packet (AGWPE engine) for programs such as MixW, Hamscope
Winradio's Digital Suite and Advanced Digital Suite has support for VHF Packet
MultiMode (for the Mac)
Hoka's Code 300-32 (very expensive - don't say you weren't warned, hi)
MultiPSK
SkySweeper

Utility Monitoring Central's software page has the links for all of the above. I've never tried these, 
but they should work. Of course, if you already have a working TNC, you're halfway home already :.>>
http://www.chace-ortiz.org/umc/software.html


links editor,Capitol Hill Monitors
Utility Monitoring Central
editor, Strong Signals software page
Wiki Administrator, Radioreference.Com 

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