My QSO with an Astronaut
by David Worboys M0ZLB/KG4ZLB in Naples, Florida
For me, one of the 'holy grails' of amateur radio has always been contacting
the International Space Station and QSO-ing with one of the astronauts
directly rather than using the cross band repeater or the packet system.
And so for many months, armed with the Nova tracking system, I have watched
the big white bird soar majestically over Florida, turned on the radio
and been greeted with the squawking packet transmissions!
On the back of an e-mail that I received from my Club in England, the
Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society, I read a report of one of friends there
having made contact one afternoon, and astonishingly, the ISS was calling
CQ! I had imagined that as soon as the system was on voice, it would be
swamped with hams trying to make contact.
So, on Monday November 28, I checked the path and found that at about
4.20pm local, the ISS would be passing over at a 17 degree elevation;
although I was at work at the time I thought I would have a go anyway.
I had driven to the local Post Office and was sitting in the car in the
lot outside, when the ISS came over the horizon and I waited to see if
the packet system was on or not. I had my mobile Icom radio set to the
uplink frequency and was using my Icom h/t for the downlink, holding it
out the window of the car!
A couple of minutes into the pass I heard a voice and with growing excitement,
waited to see if the station was in cross band and that what I was listening
to was other hams talking to each other using the ISS as a big repeater
system.
And then I heard,
“This is NA1SS calling CQ”…I
nearly dropped the h/t. Composing myself quickly, I called back,
“NA1SS, this is KG4ZLB”, immediately, the
voice came back,
“KG4ZLB, this is NA1SS, solid copy, name is Bill”.
Bill McArthur is the Commander of the ISS at the present time and his
personal call is KC5ACR.
In response to my telling him who and where I was, I was interested to
learn that he had spent a vacation in Naples just before leaving for the
ISS on Expedition 12 from Russia. He also said that he sent his best wishes
to everyone in Florida especially after the torrid time we have had in
hurricane season, and then he was gone and over the horizon.
Needless to say, my QSL and SASE were in the mail within the hour. When
I returned to Florida on December 12 after a visit to England, my ISS
QSL card was waiting for me and has taken pride of place ahead of the
one from Japan that I got a few months ago!
Now if they would just put a solar powered repeater on the Moon……..!
David Worboys M0ZLB/KG4ZLB
Naples, Florida
• Additional
note by Trevor M5AKA:
Predictions of when the International Space Station can be heard are available
at:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/predict/
Further information on the ISS see the Fan Club website:
http://www.issfanclub.com/
ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station)
http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm
AMSAT-UK produce a quarterly newsletter "Oscar News" which is
full of Amateur Satellite information. For membership details contact
the secretary Jim Heck G3WGM
Tel: +44 (0)1258 453959
E-mail: g3wgm@amsat.org
Website: http://www.uk.amsat.org/
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