I was visiting FN95 on my vacation; beautiful hilltop with about nearly 360 degree visibility. I first caught a 30-degree elevation using my F6A with stock rubber ducky. I had to twist it around a bit to find the right best orientation (horizontal this time) but I got a nice signal the entire pass. I hope I have recorded some SSTV that I can decode once I get back home. That will be cool!
Next orbit (about 23:58Z Aug 29) it went directly overhead (or close). This time I happened to hit the greeting in English, which was clearly audible, although I did not get as much SSTV. I probably wasn't tweaking the doppler enough or getting the orientation right.
Bonus: ISS came over 5 minutes later and I got to ooh and aaah our friends.
Now that I have a few things that work, I can eliminate some of my sources of trouble at the home QTH, and hopefully get the signal back where I have the decoding software etc set up!
Whoo-hoo! This is fun! And the telemetry sounds like the solar panels are holding up well even if the battery did not!
Burns, W2BFJ