SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS014
ARLS014 Shuttle carries three hams

ZCZC AS22
QST de W1AW
Space Bulletin 014  ARLS014
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington, CT  September 17, 1996
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS014
ARLS014 Shuttle carries three hams

Three hams are aboard space shuttle Atlantis, which was launched at
0854 UTC Monday morning. Astronauts aboard include Jay Apt, N5QWL;
Carl Walz, KC5TIE; and John Blaha, KC5TZQ. Blaha will spend 120 days
as a resident on the space station Mir, replacing Shannon Lucid, who
has been living on Mir for the last six months. The shuttle will
dock with the station on September 19 at 0317 UTC.

STS-79 is carrying the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX)
payload in Configuration M. Configuration M is voice-only operations
on a downlink frequency of 145.840 MHz FM. Voice uplinks are on
144.45 and 144.47 MHz. Packet radio is not on Atlantis this mission.
SAREX equipment was to be set up early in the flight. The crew has
three prearranged contacts with schools: Andover Middle School in
Andover, Kansas; Immaculate Conception Elementary School in Celina,
Ohio; and the Royal School For Girls in Haslemere, Surrey, England.
The students have been preparing for their contact for several
months. These contacts will occur after the shuttle has docked with
Mir. Random contacts will also be made with the ''ham'' community.

Amateurs should check W1AW bulletins and AMSAT SAREX bulletins for
Keplerian elements and information about possible random contact
opportunities. SAREX operating frequencies and additional
information can be found on the ARRLWeb SAREX page,
http://www.arrl.org/sarex/.
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