The Packet Radio service on the ISS has been out for a few months, but during an EVA yesterday a cable was replaced and the service is back up again for the first time today.
I used my regular 2m radio , an Icom 880h with my homebrew copper wire 2m groundplane antenna in the attic, and transmitted on full power (50w), hooked up to a laptop via a Rigblaster, running UZ7HO soundmodem for the packet radio modem, and used the UISS software to send the APRS packets.
The pass was only 57 degrees at the highest, so it wasn’t a particularly high pass. I don’t think I started to hear packets until it was a couple of mins towards the peak. I heard 6 other stations get digipeated by the ISS: KB6LTY, K6FVC, N6RSX, KG6LHW, W7OSG and AB7DY, and I got about 3 APRS transmission digipeated (my callsign is KK6DCT):
If you’re wondering what this is about I have a couple of other posts from when I tried to get this working a few years ago:
Hello. I have a ID 880H and a Kantronics KPC 3 Plus and want to know if this will work for the ISS.
I worked packet back in the early 90’s and it looks like a lot has changed.
Thank for taking time to help.
KB7KUH
Hi Don – yes, as long as you configure the KPC to send unproto frames then you should be good!
73, Kevin KK6DCT
I realize this is several years later but I’m still interested in the “old” packet radio. I enjoyed that so much. I was wondering if you have some resources to get a guy started back into that. I might still have a TNC somewhere but would just as soon use a “software” TNC.
I have a bunch of posts on setting up Direwolf on a Raspberry Pi (if you search here you can find them), but on Windows an easy option is UZ7HO’s soundmoden which you can download with the terminal software here https://uz7.ho.ua/packetradio.htm