ShackDeck
Sign in Download Free Now

What to listen to · ISS

ISS on 130.167 MHz: the backup channel of the Russian segment

The second voice channel of the Russian segment of the ISS, VHF-2, kept for the moments when the main channel on 143.625 MHz is busy or unavailable. Rarely used, but the same crew and the same passes.

Frequency130.167 MHz
ModeFM

What you hear

When in use, what the main channel carries: the cosmonauts talking to mission control in plain FM, five to ten minutes per pass, the space side only. How the sessions sound, how the passes work and what the Doppler shift does is in the main article. Most of the time it is silent.

Who transmits and why

The same crew and radio, on the channel the Russian side calls VHF-2, kept so that voice traffic can continue when the first channel is occupied or under test. When it is used is not published; listeners report it only now and then. An open transmission, but not an amateur frequency: know your country's rules about passing on what you hear.

When and where to listen

The same passes as the main channel: up to ten minutes each, four to six a day, with voice only while the station is over Russia and eastern Europe in the crew's Moscow working hours. The frequency lies inside the aviation band, so an airband receiver covers it, though the station speaks in FM, not AM. Check it when the main channel is quiet on a daytime pass.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → ISS → ISS: crew backup channel. The program finds where the station is, picks a public receiver with the frequency inside its footprint, tunes it to 130.167 MHz in FM and names the receiver; when the station is out of reach it says when the next pass over you begins. The Satellites tab shows the track, footprint and passes of the next 24 hours.

More stations

ISS on 121.750 MHz: Orlan spacesuits and Soyuz on AM

121.750 MHz · AM

During Russian spacewalks, and when a Soyuz or a Progress approaches the station, the suit radios and the ship's voice channel come up on 121.750 MHz in AM. Silent most of the year, then a few hours of rare voices.

ISS on 437.800 MHz: the cross-band voice repeater

437.800 MHz · FM

Since 2020 the ISS carries an FM repeater: voice up on 145.990 MHz with a 67 Hz tone, back down on 437.800 MHz, short contacts on almost every pass. ShackDeck picks a receiver under the pass; mind the Doppler.

ISS on 145.825 MHz: the APRS digipeater in orbit

145.825 MHz · APRS

The packet radio aboard the ISS repeats APRS packets from ground stations across its whole footprint on 145.825 MHz, pass after pass. ShackDeck decodes them and puts the stations on the map, scattered over a continent.

ISS on 145.800 MHz: SSTV pictures from orbit and ARISS school contacts

145.800 MHz · SSTV

The amateur radio downlink of the ISS: several times a year a week of slow-scan pictures, in between the astronauts' answers to schoolchildren's questions. ShackDeck decodes the pictures on screen.

SSTV on 80 metres: 3730 kHz at night

3730 kHz · LSB

The 80 m SSTV frequency comes alive after dark: 3730 kHz, lower sideband, pictures from a few hundred kilometres around the receiver, with the whole of Europe within reach on long winter nights.

SSB on 80 metres: 3700 kHz, evening round tables

3700 kHz · LSB

80 m is the band of the daily round table: friends on the lower sideband at the same hour every evening, local by day and Europe-wide by night. 3700 kHz sits in the middle of the voice segment.