ISS

International Space Station

The ISS is in a nearly circular 400 km high Earth orbit at an inclination of about 51.6° to the equator and orbits the Earth at about 28,800 km/h about every 90 minutes in an easterly direction. The ISS is equipped with an amateur radio system, which enables radio transmissions of data and voice on the VHF amateur radio bands.

The ARISS program, which was developed in cooperation between radio amateurs and the space agencies involved, offers students and pupils the opportunity to regularly contact the ISS crew via radio and to find out about their work and life in earth orbit. In addition, a repeater was installed some time ago, giving radio amateurs the opportunity to use the ISS as a relay station.

Another event that takes place regularly is the broadcast of SSTV (Slow Scan Television). These still images are broadcast on special anniversaries.

Uplink Language	145.200 Mhz
Downlink SSTV	145.800 Mhz
Up/Downlink Packet Radio/APRS	145.825 Mhz
Crossbandrepeater Downlink	437.800 Mhz
Crossbandrepeater Uplink	145.990 Mhz
Command Frequency (No Ham Radio)	143.625 Mhz

An SDR dongle or analog scanner is sufficient as a receiver. A discone can be used as an antenna, just like any other 2m band antenna. For the SSTV reception you also need a PC with decoding software.

I already have three videos online on my YouTube channel about receiving SSTV. Just take a look if you are interested in receiving pictures of the ISS yourself. Useful links to the respective software for decoding and receiving can be found in the video description.

My equipment for receiving SSTV/radiotelephony via ISS ( * Affiliate links)

RTL SDR Dongle * https://amzn.to/39FIzQ1

Discone antenna * https://amzn.to/3t8JAHO

Decoder software:

https://www.qsl.net/on6mu/rxsstv.htm

https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php

http://users.telenet.be/on4qz/qsstv/manual/installation.html

http://f6cte.free.fr/index_anglais.htm