 Christer
Fuglesang talks from space with students in Sweden
Sunday 17 December 2006 at 18:19 UTC, 19:19 local time, ESA astronaut
Christer Fuglesang SA0AFS answered questions
of Swedish students from Thunmanskolan, Knivsta, Sweden.
The venue was in the sports hall of Kvistna with several hundred participants.
Eskil van Loosdrecht SM5SRR and Thomas Nordlöv had carefully prepared
the event and presented the ARISS experimental radio contact with the
International Space Station.
When the ARISS groundstation VK4KHZ, located in Glenden, Queensland,
Australia and operated by Shane Lynd called NA1SS, Christer Fuglesang
came back immediately. Signals were excellent all along the ten minutes
pass of the ISS over north-eastern Australia.
Christer answered 13 questions from the students. The conversation was
conducted in Swedish. Funglesang is the first Swedish astronaut and enthusiasm
in Sweden is topmost. The audience was delighted with hearing Swedish
spoken from space.
The contact was broadcast over IRLP and EchoLink. Wayne Harasimovitch
VE1WPH, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada broadcast the audio on
IRLP and reported 8 connections in Canada, USA and Sweden. Dieter Schliemann
KX4Y, located in Scottsboro, Alabama, USA, broadcast the contact on EchoLink
and reported 50 known connection whereof 25 in Sweden. There were also
uncounted listeners on 5 simplex nodes, and 3 repeater nodes.
Dieter also recorded the contact and this mp3 recording will be available
for download, appended to this News Bulletin, published on the Archives
page of www.ariss-eu.org.
Many thanks to all volunteers involved in this event, especially Kenneth
Ransom N5VHO from JSC, NASA and ARISS Operations Coordinator Tim Bosma
W6MU from Santa Rosa, California. Our thanks also to Verizon Conferencing,
Inc. which offered the telebridge facilities.
ARISS, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station,
an international working group of several amateur radio societies from
countries participating to the ISS, provides a free educational outreach
programme in collaboration with the Space Agencies, involving a worldwide
team of volunteering amateur radio operators.
Gaston Bertels, ON4WF
ARISS-Europe chairman
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