I heard on the amsat-bb mailing list that the repeater aboard the ISS might be active, so tonight I waited for a pass, which occurred at 8:10 or so UTC (just after midnight localtime). The uplink was around 437.800, the downlink on 145.800, which is sort of the reverse of the normal operation on AO-51 or the other easysats. Unfortunately, the pass was low, and to the north east, which is my least favorable horizon. In addition to the high horizon, there is a strong noise source in that general direction, strongly emitting on 145.825Mhz. Still, I put on some jeans and wandered outside for the pass.
I had some difficulty getting it at first: the high horizon wasn’t helping. But suddenly, I got some quieting, and could hear my voice (sounding slightly companded or something) booming back from the ISS with full quieting. I called CQ on the empty satellite a few times, and was just about to give up when I got KB9VSB, Dwight, from EN52 (nearly 3000km, and I think my first Wisconsin QSO). Sadly, I muffed the exchange, and just as quickly as I got the quieting, I lost it, probably as the satellite dropped below the peaks to the east. Rats.
I’ll be trying this again tomorrow.
Oh, I did record the pass too. It’s not very exciting, but here it is:
My first attempt at voice contact via the ISS FM repeater
Addendum: Tried it again too, and got Patrick, WD9EWK, and VE6EGN, Egan, from DO23. Heard some more people too, VE6GAV, AK5V, VE5ISS, and others… Got garbage at the end, the pass was pretty low.