Today was a busy day finalizing the video production, re-checking audio levels, and practice, practice, practice with the full radio & production crew and FSMS faculty. A big thank you to everyone who helped today, including LARG members WA4TXE, KG4TIH, K0ZR, N0JSD, and N4PD (my apologies if I missed anyone) and Paulson’s friends Dave, Gary, and Parker.
We made a QSO via AO-91, and monitored a successful school contact with a ground station in Maryland using the primary and backup stations. My home SATNOGS station captured much of the transmission from the ISS. You can listen to it here. (Use the audio tab. The full contact was closer to 11 minutes; the audio becomes decent about 90 seconds in. I’m sure other SATNOGS stations did as well or better.)
Tomorrow (Tuesday 10/29) is CONTACT DAY! The main crew will be arriving at the school ~7:00 AM. If you are planning on helping (we can use a few more ham-hands and friends of hams backstage) please arrive at Farmwell Station MS by 9:00 AM and check in at the office to get your visitor badge. The program starts around 10:00. CONTACT TIME is currently 11:00:41 (may change a little by tomorrow morning). Contact will finish about 11:11, and students will be dismissed before 11:30.
Live Stream: https://live.myvrspot.com/player?udi=bG91ZG91bg==&c=ZmFybWlzcw== starting about 10:25AM for the pre-contact program. [The program may be several seconds up to 30 seconds delayed from live radio.]
Listen from home: 145.8 MHZ, FM. An HT (orient sideways to the ISS location) can receive much of the pass. You may need squelch off. More info at ariss.org, amsat.org. https://www.heavens-above.com/main.aspx and https://www.n2yo.com/?s=25544&live=1
RF QUIET REQUEST: If on school grounds, please, avoid transmitting on 2M, particularly anywhere near 145.80 MHz, during the contact period to not impair our reception of the ISS. We are using UHF simplex for local coordination.
We will need help with tear-down. If you can help with tear-down, please try to arrive about noon. (Later arrivals welcome!) If you cannot arrive until later, we can probably still use your help to remove the equipment and get it back to the KS1G or KG4TIH QTHs. In particular, a pickup that can handle the antenna base (a 6x6x1 angle iron frame, can be stacked on-edge) is needed.
I’d like to thank again everyone for their assistance. This has been a big effort, and we getting a huge amount of publicity for LARG and amateur radio!
73s, de KS1G
