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www.southgatearc.org
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CARS Member's ISS School Contact“November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, this is Kilo Four Yankee Hotel Baker” ….. silence! “November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, this is Kilo Four Yankee Hotel Baker” … silence again! “November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, this is Kilo Four Yankee Hotel Baker” “Kilo Four Yankee Hotel Bravo, this is NA1SS” At this point I finally started breathing again as Bill McArthur, current Commander of the International Space Station, returned the call and so began the 9 minutes and 45 seconds of rapid fire questions from students at Pine Ridge Middle and Immokalee Middle Schools assembled in the room. It had been virtually a year since the club was approached by Sharon Lea of Pine Ridge Middle School with a view to facilitating the contact which, as both Schools were part of the NASA Explorer program, could be applied for. At that time, even the application had not been completed and we were under the impression that it could be up to two years before a QSO would be scheduled with so many other Schools on the waiting list, ISS crew duties and reliable passes to be taken into consideration. But the Club swung into action, with Gary, KD4VRZ and Doug, N4DMD taking over completion of the application and, as our most experienced satellite operators, chairing the operating committee between them. Once the application had been sent in, thoughts turned to the venue and the logistics of setting up a portable station, with a complete back up at hand, in a large school. We were lucky enough to be invited to set up an operating station some months ago for a NASA evening with students and their parents, so we already had a pretty good idea of the layout of the school and Gary and Doug visited with the Principal and the Head of Maintenance to ascertain the best place for the antennas and the siteing of the cable runs. Just into December 2005, we were advised that we had a window of opportunity looming in a few day's time so a work party attended at the school one Saturday morning and ran the cabling (coax and rotor), and assembled two multi-element 2m beams on the roof of the school complete with Gary’s brand spanking new Yaesu AZ/EL rotor. A second set of cables for the back up antenna were also run, and radios and computer controlled rotor programs and satellite tracking were fired up and tested. 30 minutes after completion, on our way home, we received word that the contact was being scrubbed, the reason for which we were not given but a big disappointment anyway. With the antennas and cabling in place, we just had to wait! And then, on January 30, we got the message that we were good to go on February 8th with a 54 degree, 10.24 local pass.
So back we trundled to the School; some on the Saturday and Sunday beforehand and the rest on the Tuesday morning when everything was installed in the Schools media room, connections were made for the Nova satellite tracking program to be projected onto the large screen so that everyone could see where the ISS was at any given time. CCTV was employed giving every classroom in the school the opportunity to watch the contact live, and on the day, NASA webcasted the whole event! Tuesday afternoon and everything was running well except for the NOVA program which had developed a glitch. Gary said that he would re-install the program overnight and we all agreed to meet at 8.00am on the following morning, coffee and donuts permitting! Wednesday dawned bright and early (definitely too early for me anyway) and we reconvened at the School and tested every part of the system; everything was a “go”. At the time of the contact, we had some 70 students in the room, 10 or so teachers, Frank Halas the Collier County Commissioner and two news crews from the local stations and two or three print journalists, this felt more and more like a huge event. Taylor, K4TKD opened the proceedings by calling for the ISS and Jessie, KI4HEU announced the loss of signal after the very last question, Jessie’s last words, “Godspeed Bill McArthur” were especially poignant and wild clapping and cheering erupted signalling the end of a very special event. I think it is important to recognise two members who gave so freely of their time and their own equipment, in making this event happen, they are: Gary – KD4VRZ Not only did they give their time but they also acted as control operators throughout the QSO, and they never skipped a beat, well done Gary and Doug and thank you to everyone who gave of their time in ensuring that this thing happened! Thanks everyone.
• David is a
member of the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society (CARS) and obtained his
Amateur Licence in 2002 by attending one of the CARS Foundation training
courses.
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