The Radio Receiver on the ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer) spacecraft was designed to track type III solar radio bursts at 24 frequencies in the range 30 kHz - 2 MHz with 2 bandwidths, 3 and 10 kHz. The antennas used are 2 dipoles : one (2x45 m long) in the spin plane and denoted by S, the other (2x7 m long) along the spin axis and denoted by Z. The receiver was designed for high sensitivity (0.3 mV in 3 kHz bandwidth), high intermodulation rejection (80 dB/mV for order 2 products), large dynamic range (70 dB), high selectivity (-30 dB response 6.5 kHz away from the center frequency of 10.7 MHz for the 3 kHz bandwidth channels), and high reliability.

During the orbital life at the Lagrange point, from launch on 12 August 1978 to September 1982, and through out the exploration of the deep magnetic tail of Earth until late December 1983, the data were acquired at the maximum time (11 samples at 1 channel taken in a half 3-s spin period) and frequency resolution. After December 1983, when the spacecraft was sent out of the Earth-moon system to its encounter with comet Giacobini-Zinner (September 1985) and consequently renamed ICE (International Cometary Explorer Mission), the data were acquired only at lower time resolutions.

Changes of TM bitrate and TM format happened on 19th of April 1984 at 04:30 am