On 5/7/2016 4:27 PM, Dwayne Jones via BVARC wrote:
Anyone know if the astronauts still talk on the ham radio that is on
the International Space Station? Just for fun I would like to try to
talk to them. I have done it once.
Dwayne
KB5YTA
I've been kind of waiting for someone to show up with specific knowledge
of the operations. The ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space
Station) is controlled in Houston, and so there is local knowledge about
how much of that goes on. Failing to hear from someone who actually
knows, here is my understanding: ARISS schedules contacts with
schools. If you're not helping one of those schools set up their
equipment for a schedule, you're not going to be able to guarantee a
contact because whether or not an astronaut uses the ARISS radios to
make contacts during their own time depends on how much interest the
individual astronaut has in making contacts. Some have a lot of
interest, some don't have much interest at all. If you're interested in
making Q's with the ISS, you'll need to figure out when that works. The
astronauts on the ISS are on UTC, and they have personal time an hour or
so after waking and an hour or so before going to sleep, with more time
on the weekends. So, if you've got an ISS pass between 0600-0700Z or
2100Z-2200Z you might give a listen on the published frequencies. They
are making contacts with schools, but my understanding they were mostly
doing British Commonwealth schools because Timothy Peake (an English
astronaut) is currently aboard. That's the impression I got from my
Twitter feed, anyway.
Here's a Web page with more information about ARISS:
http://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html
--
Jonathan Guthrie KA8KPN
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