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 Previous: ARRL Names Leonard, International Humanitarian Award Winners |  Next: FCC Requires Payment of Vanity Call Sign Fee at Renewal Too |
 ISS Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, has been one of the most active ham radio operators from space. [NASA Photo] |
NEWINGTON, CT, Jan 26, 2006--International Space Station Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, has achieved his goal of working all US states from NA1SS, and he's continuing his efforts to wrap up DXCC as well. On Saturday, January 21, he worked Alaska for his final state. In addition, he's already worked all continents, including Antarctica, on both VHF and UHF, from NA1SS. McArthur has been one of the most active radio amateurs ever to inhabit the ISS, although the space station crew's activities in advance of a February 3 space walk--or EVA, as NASA calls it--could curtail his casual operating for several days.
"Bill is likely to be very busy preparing for the EVA and
has not been as active during the week," Amateur Radio on the International
Space Station (ARISS) Ham Radio Project Engineer
Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, told ARRL this week. McArthur has been most active
during weekends.
Ransom also notes that McArthur and crewmate Valery Tokarev will be altering their schedule during the runup to the space walk. "The crew will be waking about 1100 UTC and going to sleep about 0230 UTC until Jan 29, and shift to a wake up time of 1300 UTC and sleep time of 0430 UTC until the day of the EVA," he said.
McArthur added several new DXCC entities to his growing
list this past weekend, Ransom says, and is better than three-quarters of the
way toward working 100. The new ones were Guadeloupe, Luxembourg, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Northern Ireland and Colombia. Ransom reports that McArthur
has put more than 1000 QSOs and 77 DXCC entities in the NA1SS logbook. The vast
majority of his casual contacts have been with stations in the Americas and Europe. "He could really use some stations in Africa and Oceania," Ransom noted.
Information on which DXCC entities McArthur still needs is available from the ISS Fan Club Web site.
 McArthur with his EMU spacesuit. The Expedition 12 crew will conduct a space walk on Friday, February 3. |
McArthur also is on track to set an ARISS milestone--the
most school group contacts by an ISS crew member and the most of any mission.
As of January 25, he had handled 19 school group QSOs, while Tokarev had done
one from RS0ISS. The current individual record is held by Expedition 10's Leroy
Chiao, KE5BRW, who logged 23.
 SuitSat-1 will be launched early in the February 3 space walk. |
Ransom urges Earth stations who've already worked NA1SS to give others a chance--especially if they live in a densely populated area. He also offers some simple operating suggestions to increase everyone's chances of making a successful NA1SS contact:
During the scheduled February 3 space walk, McArthur and Tokarev will release "SuitSat-1"--quite possibly the most unusual Earth satellite ever. SuitSat consists of a surplus Russian Orlan space suit converted into a transmit-only satellite with an FM downlink frequency of 145.990 MHz. Using the call sign RS0RS, it will transmit voice messages, telemetry and an SSTV image on a nine-minute cycle as it orbits Earth.
The batteries powering the satellite are expected to last about a week after deployment, and SuitSat's free-floating, decaying orbit should cause it to re-enter Earth's atmosphere after some six weeks in space. The SuitSat signal should be strong enough to hear using a VHF transceiver or scanner and a simple antenna. SuitSat's payload also includes a CD containing hundreds of school pictures, artwork, poems, and student signatures.
For more information, see article "This is
SuitSat-1 RS0RS!" by Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, on the AMSAT Web site. The Science@NASA Web site also
has posted an informative article about SuitSat.
| Previous: ARRL Names Leonard, International Humanitarian Award Winners | Next: FCC Requires Payment of Vanity Call Sign Fee at Renewal Too |
