ISS on 38lsb - hoax?

[BC Coyote]

I have a sneaking and growing suspicion that this is indeed a hoax, and it may be originating from a Russian ship in the North Pacific somewhere. All the stations I've heard working these guys and all the reports I'm aware of seem to be from either the western parts of the US and Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Nobody in Europe or Eastern N.A. seems to be hearing them which seems odd if the thing is in orbit !
Has anybody here on the site who lives east of the Rockies heard the "ISS" ?? I would be very curious to know......... I've talked to several people who have worked them but they are all from California and up here in BC.

A ship being the source could also explain why I sometimes here the "ISS" when there is no other skip. As I'm sure you all know, there can often be conditions to parts of the world where there are no stations. You may be hearing nothing, but that may be because there are simply no stations where the conditions are open to!
I often have openings where I only hear one or two stations, such as to the far north of Canada, because there are only one or two stations in that area!

I'm still on the fence regarding the "ISS", but I'm getting ready to jump off........

I sure love a good radio mystery and this is the best one we've had in a few years

 

[TM86]

I have a sneaking and growing suspicion that this is indeed a hoax, and it may be originating from a Russian ship in the North Pacific somewhere. All the stations I've heard working these guys and all the reports I'm aware of seem to be from either the western parts of the US and Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Nobody in Europe or Eastern N.A. seems to be hearing them which seems odd if the thing is in orbit !
Has anybody here on the site who lives east of the Rockies heard the "ISS" ?? I would be very curious to know......... I've talked to several people who have worked them but they are all from California and up here in BC.

A ship being the source could also explain why I sometimes here the "ISS" when there is no other skip. As I'm sure you all know, there can often be conditions to parts of the world where there are no stations. You may be hearing nothing, but that may be because there are simply no stations where the conditions are open to!
I often have openings where I only hear one or two stations, such as to the far north of Canada, because there are only one or two stations in that area!

I'm still on the fence regarding the "ISS", but I'm getting ready to jump off........

I sure love a good radio mystery and this is the best one we've had in a few years

Possible solution to the mystery. It's a very old ship. The ISS stands for "Imperial Steam Ship." A leftover from Tsarist Russia.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

Maybe we are thinking about the wrong ISS?

Home

International School Services (ISS) is a global nonprofit focused on improving the quality of international education.

www.iss.edu

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

This is the one thing that keeps me from putting a great big "hoax" label on this, is the fact I keep hearing them when there's no skip conditions !

I used to work into Ireland from Nova Scotia in the very late evening, sometimes as late as 2am. You would swear there were zero conditions for but there were indeed.

 

[BC Coyote]

Well it was dead here this morning and no "ISS". Just an hour ago the pacific opened up with Hawaii and Australia coming in here, and lo and behold ! There's Boris in the space station ! I think ISS stands for "International Spy Ship" LOL!

 

[AudioShockwav]

Follow up message fromARISS:

I heard back from our Chairman, here's what he said: Seems fake to me on several levels: 1. There is no Sergey on-board 2. “Sergey” told him to contact him again in an hour. ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. 3. I am sure we would have been informed if something like this was being planned, because it has the potential of interference with our program. They would need to install a 27 MHz (HF) antenna and then operate. The NASA frequency coordination team, I am sure would have contacted us.
4) I do not think that CB has space authorization, while amateur radio does.
So, debunked in multiple ways.

End Quote.

73
Jeff

 

[BC Coyote]

Thanks Jeff ! Pretty sure Boris & Sergei are on a ship, but it's out on the Pacific somewhere not in space........ I'm glad ARISS responded and settled this once and for all.

Now to persuade the legions of people on channel 38 who are absolutely certain they talked to the space station LOL!

 

[AudioShockwav]

From K8BZ

Quote:

What part of this 6 hour plus video is supposed to show signals from ISS? I wasn't about to listen to the entire video to try to find it.

The parts I listened to were clearly not ISS. Here are some ways to make that determination:

ISS is a LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite. The longest it is in range, or above the horizon is about 10 minutes on a direct or near direct overhead pass. No where close to the 6 hours of whatever that was supposed to be on the video. In fact ISS could have completed up to 4 full orbits of the earth in that period of time. The orbital period of ISS is about 90 minutes.

LEO satellites like ISS are fast moving targets with a wicked doppler shift. When receiving SSB signals from ISS their apparent frequency will vary from 5 Khz higher than actually transmitted as the satellite is coming toward you to 5 Khz lower than actually transmitted as it is moving away from a ground station. And remember this, the 10 Khz shift happens in a 10 minute time window for an overhead pass. I never saw the receive frequency move from 27.385 over the random parts of the video I checked. You would literally have to be retuning an SSB signal every few seconds to keep it in tune. Especially as it pass overhead, or at any elevation above 70 degrees or so. The higher the elevation, the faster the apparent motion and the faster the doppler shift change.

If someone is claiming that any of the parts I listened to as being transmitted from ISS, they are either misinformed, gullible, full of it, or all three. I may have been born in the dark, but it wasn't yesterday.

End Quote

Kudos to @brandon7861 for the same concerns about Doppler effect.

Looks like it's piling up as internet horse pucky.....

73
Jeff

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

Just wait until people start getting fake QSL cards from the ISS......

The doppler shift will cause a 10Khz shift in a matter of minuets? What if they were transmitting on a Galaxy radio? The drift would cancel out the doppler effect?

 

[nomadradio]

Doppler? Reminds me of some guys I knew in high school. Both had identical Galaxy (WRL Council Bluffs Iowa) 80/40-meter transceivers. They each bought a cheap mail-order surplus 1rpm timing motor and identical rubber-tire wheels meant for record player repair, mounted it on the motor and rubber-band held it against the radio's VFO knob. So long as they started out on frequency to each other, they could have a QSO from one end of the band to the other. Anybody they stepped on got told "Just passing through, don't mind us".

And they did get pink slips from the FCC.

73

 

[DXman]

Ok - yesterday the 20th, I heard the name Boris on 38 and he was asking if anyone could copy. I said "yes Boris, I hear you" and he replied " where is your location?" I said I am in the Antarctica, were are you? Nothing heard after that, so short qso.
There was very little dx at the time, mostly from the west coast.
The "jig" is up on u Boris...............

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Natasha probably called him for supper. Can't beat that borscht.

 

[nomadradio]

Moose and skvurrull.

73

 

[doffo]

This kinda reminds me of the dude who would say "You are making a fine trip out here into Sidney Australia. Worldwide Butt pirate" lol.... Fake.
Without opening up the video I knew it was fake. As some mentioned the doppler effect and the fact that the signal would not reach it on HF.

I at least got to use the 2m repeater off the ISS the end of 2022. I would have to look again at the card I got from the gentlemen out of Oklahoma.