WB4SON

For tiny Rhode Island, the International Space Station contact with students from All Saints Academy (Middletown, RI) and other schools on May 6 was BIG news.  Perhaps because it was good news, or maybe because of a statewide heightened interest in education, it appeared on all three major TV network stations (ABC6, CBS12, NBC10) during their various news programs between 5:00 PM and 7:30 PM Friday.  Newspapers, like The Newport Daily News shown below, carried it on their front page the next day.

When I came home after the event around 5 PM, I spent the next 4 and a half hours responding to emails that had come in discussing the event — it really seemed to grab people’s attention.  Friends, ham radio acquaintances, and others that somehow knew I was involved reached out to tell me how touched they were.

A common theme appeared in many of the messages, and especially in an audio capture from a local AM radio station that carried the audio feed — “There wasn’t a dry eye to be found in the studio”.  While the students at the event were star-eyed and filled with excitement over what they had just accomplished, the adults in the room, all of them, were drying their eyes.  Somehow, this connected with everyone’s heart, combining the joy of discovery, exploration, and a sense of communal accomplishment.  The adults knew this was rare air indeed and it was impossible to hold the emotional impact in check.

Personally, I had shed my tears earlier during practice sessions, when the kids were first running through their questions.  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be part of this.  I welled up again when I saw what I think is an incredibly touching commercial made by MTN, a continent-wide telecommunication company in Africa called “Sam from earth calling the space station”.  There is a scene, when young Sam finally reaches the Space Station, where his mother drops a plate of dishes onto the floor.

That mother’s reaction and feelings — unbelief, shock, wonderment — were felt all throughout the live event room after Paula (one of the most poised students I have ever met) called for NA1SS SEVEN times before Astronaut Jeff Williams’ voice finally broke through the noise.  Man, that was stressful, but produced a bonafide hollywood moment.

Once contact was made (1 min 50 sec after the ISS was above our horizon), the students and Jeff Williams handled the Q&A like seasoned pros — all 24 questions (an extraordinary number, I’ve been told), were asked and answered.  Paula was sending her 73, just as the ISS was fading into the noise.

The Q&A livestream can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTkq5btNW_U&feature=youtu.be

I’m still trying to get a handle on my feelings two days later so I can capture them.  How lucky was I to be a part of this.  How fortunate we were to have Mike and Beth Cullen drive this forward.  How wonderful to work with such a diverse group of people to plan this for over a year and be able to carry it out (especially the staff of All Saints Academy, who welcomed us with open arms).  How amazing that ARISS and NASA allow this to happen.

How much I envy the young school students and what awaits them.

The ARISS and NASA organizations have just announced that the All Saints Academy contact with the International Space Station will take place on Friday May 6th.

Our orbit will be a descending one, beginning at approximately 12:44 PM local time and continuing until approximately 12:54 PM.  It will rise above the horizon to our northwest, pass to our southwest, then set to our southeast, reaching a maximum elevation of 56 degrees.

More details can be found here:  http://w1sye.org/?p=2460

I received a QSL via the ARRL for the packet activity through the ISS Packet Robot, RS0ISS on April 4th.

As our ARISS contact is 30 days away, so it is time for lots of practice.  While not at All Saints yet, I am using my IC-9100 with egg-beaters to monitor the ISS Packet Robot on 145.825 +/- Doppler.  Packets are handled by a SCS P4dragon DR-7400 modem.  This is pretty much the equal of our backsup station for the ARISS contacts.

I had a fairly decent 30 degree pass from the SSW to the NE, much lower than we will be using on the actual contact day.  I was able to copy dozens of packets from RS0ISS, the ISS packet robot, and I was able to copy several of mine go through the robot and come back down.  My packets were copied from the robot at:

The pass was from 22:09:36 to 22:20:08 UTC, with a 30 degree max.  Packets started decoding at 22:14:20 (almost 5 minutes into the pass) and continued to decode until  22:18:00.  I have some shadowing due to my house from the SW.

Here is a screen cap that shows the return packet from the Robot (add 1 minute to the time stamp as the DR-7400 TNC clock is exactly 1 minute slow — my outbound packet is shown immediately before the repeated one):

From the next pass (23:45:55 to 23:56:39), as reported by ARISS.NET:

20160404235118 : WB3FKP]CQ,RS0ISS*,qAR,VE2GQF-2::WB4SON :Hello to all over the ISS ! wb3fkp@gmail.com

20160404235022 : W8KRF-6]ALL,RS0ISS*,qAR,WB2LMV::WB4SON :UR 59 in Cleveland OH EN91ck 73

20160404235008 : WB4SON]CQ,RS0ISS*,qAR,WB2LMV:hi

20160404235001 : W8KRF-6]ALL,RS0ISS*,qAR,KD8THX-6::Heard :AI9IN,WB3FKP,N0AN-6,W4TBD-10,K3DQB,N3FCX,K4IPH,WU2V-1,WB4SON,

20160404234920 : W8KRF-6]ALL,RS0ISS*,qAR,KD8THX-6::Heard :AI9IN,WB3FKP,N0AN-6,W4TBD-10,K3DQB,N3FCX,K4IPH,WU2V-1,WB4SON{UISS54}

20160404234910 : WB4SON]CQ,RS0ISS*,qAR,KD8THX-6:hi