First ARISS contact from a broadcast station

Trevor, VK4BAT is the News Editor at Radio 4GY in Gympie, Australia, and says that this Thursday, 4GY along with the other stations in their group - known as "the super radio network" - will put to air an ARISS contact!

On Wed, 25 Feb at 07:31 UTC, 6:31 pm EAST students from The Chatham Public School will be speaking to Commander Mike Fincke on the ISS. The originating venue for the contact will be the studios of Radio 2RE in Taree.

Craig VK4SSB who is employed by Radio 2RE applied to ARISS on behalf of the Chatham School some 2 years ago for this linkup with the ISS to be held at the 2RE studios.

It's believed that this is the first ARISS contact that's been done from a broadcast studio.

Craig, VK4SSB has been working with Tony, VK5ZAI and has put a lot of effort into the publicity behind this amateur radio event.

The NZ Prime Minister, the Hon. John Key has accepted Craig's invitation to pass on greetings from the Asia/Pacific region to Mike Fincke on the ISS and to ask the first question.

As I said the contact will be aired over the Super Radio network of 38 stations ranging from 2SM in Sydney to 4GY in Gympie and out to 2BH in Broken Hill on Thursday 26 Feb.

Trevor Taege, VK4BAT

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia, vk5zai