[amsat-bb] ISS operation

[Daniel Cussen]

It does happen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11786461/Radio-ham-talks-to-space-station-from-garden-shed.html
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.

http://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html