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Local Ham Club Members Assist in Space Contact at Massachusetts School
NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 28, 2005--A dozen youngsters from two NASA Explorer Schools (NES) spoke September 16 via Amateur Radio with International Space Station Expedition 11 NASA Science Officer John Phillips, KE5DRY. The contact between W1ACT at the Matthew J. Kuss Middle School in Fall River, Massachusetts, and NA1SS in space was arranged by the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program. The audience of more than 100 parents, faculty members, fellow students and dignitaries was split between two locations, reports Roland Daignault, N1JOY, of the Fall River Amateur Radio Club/Bristol County Repeater Association. Club members, who have set up a club station and conducted licensing classes at Kuss Middle School, assisted in the contact.
"We were set up in the Kuss library with about 50 people present, including Mayor Ed Lambert, and Senator Joan Menard, who presented a citation to the Kuss students for their work," Daignault said. "We also set up an ATV link to the church hall across the street, where about 50 more people were watching our live video feed of the event projected onto a large screen." W1ACT is the call sign of the Fall River ARC. The school's club station equipment was used to make the successful two-way space contact.
Ten of the youngsters who participated in the ARISS event were from Kuss Middle School. Two seventh graders from Central Park Middle School in Schenectady, New York, also took part in the contact. Both schools are NES partners. Six of the students who got to speak with Phillips are Amateur Radio licensees.
The event drew a great deal of media attention with reporters from three television stations from nearby Providence, Rhode Island, the Comcast local access cable channel, Fall River Educational Television (FRED-TV), and two newspapers in attendance. In addition, the Museum of Science, Boston, was doing a documentary of the school contact, Daignault said.
The youngsters managed to ask Phillips 22 of the 24 questions they had on their list. Among other things, they asked what ham radio equipment the ISS had onboard, if Phillips thought a person with special needs could ever work on the ISS and if becoming an astronaut was his first career choice.
Mentoring and attending the Massachusetts event was ARISS International Chair Frank Bauer, KA3HDO.
"Needless to say, there were plenty of smiling faces at the end of the event," Daignault commented.
ARISS is an international educational outreach with US participation by ARRL, AMSAT and NASA.
Page last modified: 05:35 PM, 28 Sep 2005 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2005, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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