AMSAT-BB,

So my dad and brother and I all decided to get up and catch the pass over Chelmsford, MA at 3:23AM this morning of the ISS and Dragon. We were pleasantly suprised due to the pre-dawn light when we saw a bright ISS and not too far behind it a trailing dimmer Dragon C2+ flying overhead! We used our normal amateur satellite setup with an Arrow handheld antenna and a Yaesu VX-8R. At 10 seconds into the audio you hear us change the mode of the radio to AM.

We know from the FCC papers I linked to in the sound file description that 400.5 MHz was the only SpaceX UHF licensed frequency and it was well known that the CUCU is a UHF radio. Being 153.6 Kbps it's likely a form of spread spectrum or similar so we only expected to hear a small portion of the transmissions. I suggest reading the soundcloud description to get a full sense of where to listen in the audio but there are clear data bursts in there. CUCU and the ISS only need to transmit to each other so unlike most amateur satellites that are designed to be heard from the ground... we're picking up what's left of the 1.5W as it leaks past the spacecraft to the ground. The signals are weak but enjoy!

http://soundcloud.com/kb1lqc/dragon-orbit-29-am-uhf-yagi

73's

Bryce Salmi KB1LQC