I actually made my first ISS voice contact with Serena Auńon-Chancellor. I had been monitoring the downlink frequency on the off chance that they would be sending SSTV as they did back in June and July. Boy, was I surprised when I hear Serena saying, "NA1SS, NA1SS, over North America, anyone want to talk?"
I grabbed my mic (Icom IC-706MkIIG) and keyed up, forgetting I wasn't on the uplink frequency, giving my call, then remembered to switch to 144.490 and lo and behold, she HEARD me! Said they were over the TX/OK area at that point. Slant-line distance estimate, about 1000 miles!