Ham Radio - Talk to the Astronauts this week

[3t3]

QST -

Manassas area to have two ARISS contact passes this week

What is ARISS?

The ARISS program is a cooperative venture of Ham Radio and NASA (NASA, 
the ARRL and AMSAT) and other international space agencies that 
organizes scheduled contacts via Amateur Radio between children and 
astronauts & cosmonauts aboard the ISS (International Space Station).

With the help of experienced volunteers from Amateur Radio clubs, and 
coordination from the ARISS Team, the ISS crew members speak directly 
with audiences in a variety of public forums such as school assemblies 
or at science museums, Scout camporees and jamborees and space camps.

There will be two ARISS contacts over your area this week, and we should 
be able to copy the 145.80 MHz downlink on both passes.

The first will be tomorrow (Monday, July 23) with the Women in 
Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 
(W2RIT).  It will be a descending pass (northwest to southeast), peaking 
northeast of Manassas.  Here are the times for the Prince William County 
area, with AOS (acquisition of signal) LOS (loss of signal) data:

                     AZ/EL
AOS:  13:31:45 UTC  315/0   (AOS for the school will be 13:30:57)
PEAK: 13:36:59 UTC   31/30
LOS:  13:42:10 UTC  106/0

The second one will be on Thursday (July 26) with the Virginia Air and 
Space Center in Hampton (KE4ZXW).  It will be a descending pass again, 
but peaking southwest of Manassas this time.

                     AZ/EL
AOS:  14:06:28 UTC  297/0   (AOS for the school will be 14:06:54)
PEAK: 14:11:30 UTC  228/23
LOS:  14:16:28 UTC  159/0

It will be a female astronaut at the mic on both of these contacts 
(Sunita Williams).  She is one of the Expedition 32 crew members that 
arrived onboard the ISS last week (July 17). (See her bio below.)

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/williams-s.html

So listen in on the downlink frequencies for these contacts, it should 
be informative and fun !.

-- 
     Terry McCarty
    3t3 at comcast.net
        wa5nti

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