There is a lot of confusion about the random ISS contact by the UK ham. In a video from when the news went viral last year, he said he contacted them in October of the previous year. [1] So that would be 2014.
Currently the best opportunity for a contact is during SSTV events in between the SSTV transmissions.
Not sure about "operation," but the ISS crew sleeps on GMT time. That's a common question from students during ARISS contacts, and the astronauts/cosmonauts always say GMT.
1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186534/Radio-ham-contacts-Internati...
On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 2:29 PM, Bruce kk5do@amsat.org wrote:
also, the best time for the astronauts to make contacts is just before they are ready to go to bed. that is when they have some free time. keep in mind that the iss operates on russian time (i think same as moscow time). breaks might be harder to determine but beddy-by time is almost always the same.
73...bruce
On 3/25/2016 1:17 PM, Daniel Cussen wrote:
It does happen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11786461/Radio-ham-t... This is from just last year.
The trick is to figure out their break time, and match that with the time they are passing over your location. The radio is normally on low in the Russian module. If you call, and they are on a break, and they happen to have the radio in the correct mode to hear the uplink, then they might say hello back. The next technique after a response is to not panic!
The European module radio is on APRS duty normally.
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