Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur KC5ACR.

Chelmsford Radio Amateur talks to astronaut on International Space Station

Chelmsford Radio Amateur David G8OQW struck lucky when he listened to a pass of the International Space Station on 145.800 MHz on Thurday evening.

He heard NA1SS calling CQ from the Space Station, he replied (on 145.200 MHz) and had the QSO of a lifetime with Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur KC5ACR who was operating NA1SS.

This is David G8OQW's description of the contact.

It was pure chance, luck and a mad scramble to get the radio on and the tracking and Doppler setup.

Had just switched the PC on to check my emails and having done this went into Ham Radio Deluxe to check visibility on the sats.

ISS was showing as up. Turned on and manually tuned the radio to hear nothing but the expected packet. However, just as I was going to turn off, I heard Bill calling CQ. Then a mad scramble to connect the computer to radio, setup the split operation, get the recorder and hope he was still there! The rest you can hear from the audio file.

David told Bill that Chelmsford, where he lives, is regarded as the Birthplace of Radio. It's the the town where Marconi established his first factory over a century ago.
see: http://www.marconicalling.com/

He will be getting the special ISS QSL card for the contact which I'm sure will take pride of place in his collection.

Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society: http://www.g0mwt.org.uk/

73 Trevor M5AKA