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www.southgatearc.org
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Astronaut Jeff Williams KD5TVQ talks with British students on Space CampTuesday 13 June 2006 at 13:38 UTC, British students had an exciting space talk with US astronaut Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, onboard the International Space Station. About 60 students and their teachers from Gillingham School, Dorset, UK are on Space Camp this week at the Euro Space Center. ESC is a residential (100 beds) Space Camp for youngsters (8-18), located in Belgium near Bastogne (see Battle of the Bulge, Christmas 1944). Youngsters from many European countries come on Space Camp to ESC where monitors handle several languages. ESC also hosts a permanent Space Expo and a restaurant open to visitors, as well as amateur radio club station ON4ESC. This week, the ISS passes over Europe occur at night. Therefore, the ARISS School Contact at ESC was done per telebridge. ARISS ground station W6SRJ, located in Junior College, Santa Rosa California, established the amateur radio contact with the ISS and Verizon Conferencing offered the phone link to Belgium. W6SRJ was operated by Bill Hillendahl, KH6GJV, assisted by Don Dalby, KH6UAY. Will Marchant, KC6ROL moderated the contact. At the Euro Space Center, operations were handled by Gaston Bertels, ON4WF and Philippe Van houte, ON5PV. Twenty students (age 15-17) had been prepared carefully for the space talk, queuing to read their question loud and clear in the microphone, without losing any time. Once the contact established, all twenty questions were answered by Jeff Williams : - seeing all the details of the earth is a unique experience The audience thanked Jeff Williams for this space talk by sending him a huge applause. Before the ISS went over the horizon in Santa Rosa, Jeff had still time enough to wish the students a enjoyable space camp. He also encouraged them to study hard and said perhaps some of them would contribute to space exploration and even go to mars. In the auditorium, not only the sixty British students assisted to the event, but also fifty French schoolchildren who were visiting the Euro Space Center for just one day. When the contact was over and Will Marchant had congratulated and thanked the volunteering team members, the telebridge came to an end. Next, for the benefit of the French visitors, a teacher translated the questions and the answers into French. The ARISS School Contact was broadcast on IRLP by Waine Harasimovitch, VE1WPH and on Echolink by Dieter Schliemann, KX4Y. An audio recording of this space contact will be available on the ARISS-Europe website http://www.ariss-eu.org/ (Archives page). 73 Gaston Bertels, ON4WF
For details of the AMSAT-UK Colloquium which is open to all Radio Amateurs and SWL’s see http://www.uk.amsat.org/Colloquium/
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