Crewed Spaceflight Q&A

[nicp]

I can't find a general Q&A topic for crewed/manned spaceflight, though I may have missed it.
My thought is this topic should cover aspects of crewed spaceflight generally, but not topics pertaining to any specific crewed spacecraft.

My question is about communications.
What radio links do crew use to talk to the ground whilst sitting on the pad? Is it encrypted, or could you listen in with a cheap scanner? Encryption or scrambling might be considered something that could 'get in the way', but then perhaps you don't want just anyone listening in.

Once in orbit, or perhaps on the way to orbit, there is of course TDRSS which I guess would be more difficult to listen in to.
Presumably spacecraft visiting the ISS could communicate directly to the ISS, or does that go via TDRSS?

I have no intention of listening in myself (I'm an inactive ham, M0NMP), just curious.

[whitelancer64]

The ISS uses the geostationary TDRSS satellites to maintain a more or less constant connection to the ground.

However, there is also ham radio equipment on the ISS, ham operators can and have listened in to ISS communications, and on occasion have talked to the astronauts on the ISS.

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