I have been trying to years to raise someone at the ISS on ham radio without success. Even on the EchoLink. Anyone have tips for what I might be missing here?
Contacting one of the astronauts is fairly difficult, as they have no particular scheduled time where they listen it. It just happens to be luck-of-the-draw.
As far as using the repeater, I think most of the radios are stowed. http://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss-stations.html
I've never heard of the EchoLink connection to the ISS... Do you have details on that?