I'm one of the instructors for a Technician class course; I'll be teaching the specialized communication section (e.g. satellites, EME, APRS, fox-hunting) among other topics.
I'd like to give those students who are already interested sat comms enough info so that they can start listening to ISS and the FM sats NOW; the specialized comms topic doesn't come up until a little more than midway through the course.
As a teaser, I plan to give them the downlink frequencies from ISS and FM sats, explain tuning for doppler a little, and show them how to use the Pass Predictions page on AMSAT.ORG.
I know that ISS packet is currently only on UHF (not VHF), but is the 2 meter voice frequency of 145.800 being used, either for random contacts by the astronauts, or for school contacts?
None of them currently have packet/APRS gear, so I'm focusing only on voice contacts at least until the class ends (but I'll mention both of those when I do my more lengthy presentation in about a month).
So, in short, my question is - is 2 meters being used at all right now for voice from ISS? If not, are random contacts being made on a UHF frequency? (I don't see a UHF voice downlink frequency listed in the 2016 "Getting Started with Amateur Satellites" book.)
Thanks
Philip N4HF