First ARISS school contact in New Zealand successful

The first Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with a school in New Zealand took place on Thursday, November 20.

Students from St. Teresa's School in Wairarapa connected with the ISS via the telebridge station VK4KHZ in Australia.

Astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT answered all questions from the 21 students as an audience of 130 watched.

The audio was fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (101 377) and JK1ZRW (277 208) servers and received 7 connections from stations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.

There was extensive media coverage which included TVNZ, The Dominion Post, The Wellington Daily News and The Wairarapa Times Age.

The contact was first reported on the late news on TV One at 10.30 pm on Thursday evening. It was repeated on 4 different occasions during the Early Morning and Midday news on TV One and a 3-4 minute slot was given in the Friday 6 pm evening news. The New Zealand Education Gazette editor also asked for details regarding the contact, as it is being written up for the December issue.

The Dominion Post article has been posted on-line. See: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4767581a6479.html

To view The Wairarapa Times Age story, go to: http://www.times-age.co.nz/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?
storyid=3790845&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=
&thesecondsubsection=

TVNZ One News coverage may be found here: http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/2324497

Source: Amsat