Memorable day for Mt. Gambia students

Last Thursday the 17th of MArch 2005 will be truly a day to remember for the students from St. Martins College in Mt Gambia, Australia.

Using telephone bridge they were able to contact the
International Space Station and ask questions of Leroy Chiao (KE5BRW) on board the ISS. (An audio file of the evening is available for download).

Immediately after the contact I telephoned Tony VK5ZAI at St Martins college to find out how the evening went.

"The Amateur Radio International Space Station contact between the international space station and St Martins Lutheran College in Mt Gambier, South Australia Thursday was a great success. Ten students ranging from reception to year nine asked Astronaut Leroy Chiao all the twenty questions scheduled with around twenty seconds to spare before the ISS slipped below the horizon.

The students were prepared by their teacher, Jeanie Axton who did a brilliant job organizing their questions on separate cards and maintaining continuity of the queue during the linkup. This procedure meant there was no loss of
time.

The telebridge link was handled by Nancy, WH6PN in Hawaii. Nancy did an excellent job handling the downlink and switching. The linkup was also carried live on the Internet and was relayed via IRLP and EchoLink.

A gathering of around two hundred parents and guests along with students and members of the South East Radio Group crowded into the schools music room to listen to the event. Tony VK5ZAI set up a power point display of space scenes
along with Instant Track to show the progress of the ISS to the audience while they waited for the contact to start. After the ISS had passed Tony answered numerous questions put to him by the audience.

John, WD5EEV supervised setting up the line connections, and participants were introduced by Will, KC6ROL who as usual did a great job.

The evening was covered by WIN TV, Bush Vision, a new community TV station, the ABC radio network, The Border Watch news paper, and the WIA via VK1WIA.

Numerous photos where taken by members of the South East Radio Club and some of these will be available at
http://www.arrl.org

This was only the 7th Australian school to have taken part in the ARISS project.

Audio recorded in WAV and MP3 formats. File from following URL: For English: http://www.echolink.ru/articles/ariss

ROBERT VK3KRB

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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