Man talks to space station

[ke7trp]

My dad sent me this. Pretty cool.  I thought about trying onces but the window is real small

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/09/23/dnt.tx.ham.radio.to.space.kytx?hpt=C2

[WB2EMS]

I've actually had the opportunity to talk to a Shuttle once on a scheduled school contact, and to the ISS once on another scheduled contact.

The first one came after we setup at the Trumansburg Middle School where we helped sponsor a ham radio club with one of the teachers. We put antennas up on the roof, my 736 and amp, ran Instant Track on a big screen so everyone could see it, and piped the audio into the auditorium. We were trying for an unscheduled window and while we heard them well on a couple of passes, we didn't get through (they listened on multiple uplinks and it was the luck of the draw). We did get some good PR of it though, and that was enough to get us noticed, and a slot for a scheduled contact.

That contact was a little hokey. We had my gear setup on stage and talking to our local repeater. Up there we had a phone patch into a phone bridge with a station in Hawaii that actually did the up and downlink - much less contention on the frequency out there to interfere with a high profile contact. Sort of felt like cheating though. I got to start the conversation with the shuttle commander, and then immediately turn it over to a series of students with pre-vetted questions. Fun PR event, but I think I was the most thrilled to talk to the Shuttle. I remember watching Alan Shepard get launched and lived through the whole space program, the kids were sort of "Oh, cool. Next?"

The second contact was similar except we did our own RF out of W2CXM. Turned out one of the ISS astronauts was a CU alum, and he wanted to talk to the school, so we arranged for a bunch of the hams in the university club to do a Q&A on a pass. I was #12 I think, the last question and I got my question off, but he went over the horizon before he could get more than a few words into the answer. Again, our questions were forwarded up ahead so they could work out the answers ahead of time, which took some of the fun out of it, but I guess that's how it's done when you want to cram 12 people into 8 minutes.

Back when MIR was up, and Shannon Lucid was stuck on board, I used to hear her about every morning on the way to work. She apparently was pretty lonely, and had some folks in West Virginia so most mornings when MIR came over, she'd be on the 2 meter rig with them doing kind of a daily catch up. Kind of funny listening to someone in space, on a daily chit chat on 2 meters. Kind of how I imagined it would be by this time in history, although on a much larger scale. Damn William Proxmire once again. (and I loved the Niven story)

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[WA3VJB]

Man talks to space station

I was baying at the Moon last night.

Does that count ?

[ke7trp]

Thats really cool.  I some of the kids really enjoyed that!   

I remember when I was in middle school and my shop teacher was a ham.  He convinced the school to let him do a satalite set. It was a make shift job on a roll around cart.  He tuned in various feeds from TV and hams.  I was really interested in this and its probably one reason I am a ham now.

C

I've actually had the opportunity to talk to a Shuttle once on a scheduled school contact, and to the ISS once on another scheduled contact.

The first one came after we setup at the Trumansburg Middle School where we helped sponsor a ham radio club with one of the teachers. We put antennas up on the roof, my 736 and amp, ran Instant Track on a big screen so everyone could see it, and piped the audio into the auditorium. We were trying for an unscheduled window and while we heard them well on a couple of passes, we didn't get through (they listened on multiple uplinks and it was the luck of the draw). We did get some good PR of it though, and that was enough to get us noticed, and a slot for a scheduled contact.

That contact was a little hokey. We had my gear setup on stage and talking to our local repeater. Up there we had a phone patch into a phone bridge with a station in Hawaii that actually did the up and downlink - much less contention on the frequency out there to interfere with a high profile contact. Sort of felt like cheating though. I got to start the conversation with the shuttle commander, and then immediately turn it over to a series of students with pre-vetted questions. Fun PR event, but I think I was the most thrilled to talk to the Shuttle. I remember watching Alan Shepard get launched and lived through the whole space program, the kids were sort of "Oh, cool. Next?"

The second contact was similar except we did our own RF out of W2CXM. Turned out one of the ISS astronauts was a CU alum, and he wanted to talk to the school, so we arranged for a bunch of the hams in the university club to do a Q&A on a pass. I was #12 I think, the last question and I got my question off, but he went over the horizon before he could get more than a few words into the answer. Again, our questions were forwarded up ahead so they could work out the answers ahead of time, which took some of the fun out of it, but I guess that's how it's done when you want to cram 12 people into 8 minutes.

Back when MIR was up, and Shannon Lucid was stuck on board, I used to hear her about every morning on the way to work. She apparently was pretty lonely, and had some folks in West Virginia so most mornings when MIR came over, she'd be on the 2 meter rig with them doing kind of a daily catch up. Kind of funny listening to someone in space, on a daily chit chat on 2 meters. Kind of how I imagined it would be by this time in history, although on a much larger scale. Damn William Proxmire once again. (and I loved the Niven story)

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[WB2EMS]

There was quite a bit of interest on our first attempt, where we set up AZ-EL antennas and all and had the satellite tracking on the big screen. It was a big, techy, production of sorts. I think we even had a camera up on the roof showing the antennas slewing around. The actual scheduled contact was a lower key kind of event. A radio on the stage, with 6 students standing by a mic waiting their turn - not nearly as impressive, even if they did actually get to talk to the shuttle commander and crew that time.

I hope we did spur some interest that will grow. I remember some of the radio events of my youth that grabbed my attention and piqued an interest and those are important inflection points in one's life.

The first big ham radio one for me was a SUNY Brockport. Our school had gone on a tour there. We spent all morning in a group seeing the agricultural stuff - pigs, sheep, chicken houses, etc. Then had a picnic lunch and then they turned us loose to wander the campus with the admonition to be back on the bus by 3 pm. This was in 3rd grade. Can you imagine anyone turning a bunch of 8 year olds loose on a campus today? Anyway, I spent the next couple of hours finding the airplane shop - where there were Piper Cubs and engines and wings and props all standing around with no one to watch over them. I remember touching and looking at everything. Then my buddy Alfred and I met up and went in search of a rumored ham radio station. We found it finally, way around back and came into the room where there was a stack of gear with a big ornate speaker on top. I think the receiver might have been something like an SX-43. They were in the middle of a QSO with a station in Argentina, I think on 10 meters, and it was beautiful AM - wide rich audio and the fellow on the pampas sounded like he was in the room with us. We were fascinated, sitting cross legged on the floor, open mouthed, just taking this all in. Which is where the teacher finally found us around 3:20. Ooops! I'm pretty sure that encounter did a lot to set my course in the ham radio realm. Hopefully I can return the favor in some measure.