Speaking of ham radio mindset, I‘m continuously amazed by the existence of VHF and UHF amateur radio relay satellites, as well as the ham station on the ISS.

It doesn‘t seem like pointing a handheld radio at the sky could possibly be enough to talk to astronauts, yet it seems to work!

(V/U)HF communication range is limited mostly by the distance to the horizon.

There's no horizon if you're talking to someone straight up.

There's a cool and weird scene in "Gravity" which depicts this kind of contact.

If you've already seen the film, you should check out "Aningaaq" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrm2fv_zXoU

It’s only 250 miles, straight up!

There was a guy at one of the star parties I went to a few years ago that pulled out his ham gear and had a brief chat with the ISS as it flew over. He missed the first fly by, but caught it on the next two.

It was kind of cool for such a "simple" thing. Not sure how many others can say they've had a conversation with someone traveling 17k+ mph.

Love to see convergence on an open portable RTL-SDR rig like the "tricorder" in the article.

I've also tried putting together the right hardware + software but found it a little overwhelming for my lack of expertise.

Something like a HackRF with a Portapack?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEHfPPo1ZlU

Yeah, I think that's it. Maybe it just needs some more "intuitive" software?

I'd like to see this sort of hardware built into a smart phone as a matter of course, I think the Infosec specialists would find it extremely useful.

I doubt tunable hardware will ever be integrated into phones, given certification regulations,but there are apps for tuning RTL-SDR over USB OTG from Android.

I don't really know why an RPi was used in this example as opposed to a cheap used laptop that already has screen, battery and decent USB.