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On March 17, at 11:45am students at Cleveland Heights HS
along
with students from Wiley Middle
School
, Noble Elementary
School
and Gesu
Catholic School
talked with astronaut Bill McArthur, of the Expedition
12 crew
, on the International
Space Station
via amateur radio. This was possible through the . ARISS -
Amateur Radio on ISS - program
. Several hams and members
of the NASA Glenn Amateur Radio Club:
- Nancy, KC4IYD
- Phil, KC8SRG
- Al, KB8MTZ
- Mike, N8PJD
- Glenn, AF8C
- Tom, N8EFO
- May, N8MZJ
were
responsible in helping the students make this successful contact or
providing assistance in the auditorium. In addition, Glenn Lindamood, a NASA employee, presented a 25 minute
program on Living and Working in Space to a group of 100 high students
before the contact was made. These students viewed the contact from the
auditorium via a video linkup that was set up between the classroom where
the contact was taking place and the auditorium. One of the teachers
commented that "you could've heard a pin drop when the contact
began" as all the students were very much focused on the contact
taking place and being shown on the screen.
There was
a total of 25 questions that was planned to be asked by 14 students.
About 22 of the 25 questions were asked and each student was able to ask
at least one of their question to astronaut Bill McArthur during the 10
minute pass before we lost contact. Teacher Al DeGennaro
was interviewed by WTAM 1100 AM radio about this activity earlier that
morning. Also, the Cleveland Heights Sun newspaper was there as was
members of the board of education..
For this
contact, we also had
Echolink
up and running. Statistics of the echolink connection are that we had 30 known
connections total from 9 countries. We had uncounted listeners on 7
simplex nodes, 4 repeater nodes and 3 additional servers.
Thanks to
Dieter KX4Y for helping us with the echolink
connections and special thanks to Charlie AJ9N, the ARISS mentor who
helped the NGARC make this 2nd ISS contact also a success.
Background:
This activity was initiated by Glenn Amateur Radio club member Phil
Jenkins and Cleveland Hts HS math teacher and
NASA faculty Al DeGennaro. They completed the
ARISS paperwork in 2002 and the NGARC had said we would provide any
help the school needed. Around Oct. 2005, we were told that a contact
with ISS would take place with Expedition 12. Since that time, several
members of the ham club have been working with the school in updating
their application form, gathering equipment, visiting the schools to find
the optimum place to put up the antennas and radio equipment and
explaining what would happen to the staff and teachers during the event.
The
students came up with a list of questions and the teachers narrowed down
the list of questions. In the end, everyone was happy we made a
successful contact. Photos of the event are available at
http://resources.chuh.org/CHHS/Library/Podcasts/Kidpics/index.htm
Return to NA8SA home page.
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ARISS
activity with 