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While on a paragliding trip this weekend to Elk Mountain, North of SF in CA, we stumbled across a bunch of NASA talk on our HAM radios! We were on our way up to launch and turned on our HT's to our usual channel, only to find NASA talking to the shuttle about all sorts of inane stuff! It was on a simplex channel (147.405 to be exact) which was really weird. We couldn't quite figure out why they were using that channel or if it was just signal bleed or what. Anyhow, it was pretty awesome to listen in. If only all government agencies were as transparent!

I've just looked into it, and it seems that amateur radio licencees in the US can retransmit shuttle audio. Here is a list, your frequency seems to be listed. I believe this is just a community effort to enable as many people/schools etc. as possible to be able to listen in, although I expect these days many schools use NASA TV either by satellite or over the 'net.

Gareth