RARS/ARISS Contact this Friday (Nov. 14)
RARS will sponsor an ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) contact with Enloe Magnet High School this Friday (November 14) at 10 AM. Four Enloe students will ask questions of astronaut Mike Fincke aboard the ISS during the 10-minute pass.
The contact will be broadcast over the 146.64 repeater, with activity beginning about 9:30 AM. Dick Orander KD4ISC will be our Master of Ceremonies on the repeater.
This contact is going to be via Telebridge, with the uplink handled by Nancy WH4PN in Honolulu as the space station passes over Hawaii. We won't be doing the RF on our end. That's because there will be two other schools on the line at the same time - one in Marylend, and one in Quito, Ecuador. The ISS can't see all those locations at once, so we'll all be on the phone.
That may be less work on our end, but don't tell that to Jeff Wittich AC4ZO. Jeff is the project leader for RARS, and he put hours into building, testing and perfecting an interface box that could patch from a computer (using Skype to make the phone call) into the PA system at Enloe. Dick and Gary Pearce KN4AQ helped in the system testing. Jeff made all the arrangements between the NASA/ARISS team and the Enloe staff, with a little last-minute help from Gary.
Jeff, Dick, Gary and George Richards WA4EKJ will be on hand Friday to make sure all goes smoothly. Enloe physics instructor Sam Wheeler is our contact at Enloe. Wheeler is a Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Math & Science Teaching, and a NASA Educator Astronaut Teacher.
This contact will be the third time Triangle area students have had a chance to talk live with astronauts in space, courtesy of Amateur Radio. In 1992, RARS linked students at Cary HS, East Wake Middle School, West Millbrook Middle School and Effie Green Elementary to the Shuttle Endeveour. In 2001, the Orange County Radio Amateurs (OCRA) linked students at Phillips Middle School in Chapel Hill to the Space Station. Be sure to tune in! If you can't get to a radio, the contact should be available via Echolink.