Amateur Radio aboard the International Space Station

Contact with the Dearborn, Michigan School District’s Michael Berry Career

CenterOctober 27, 2015

David TreharneN8HKU, FARL Club President

IntroductionThis presentation is about the

process that allowed 18 elementary school students from the Dearborn School District to talk to a NASA astronaut via Amateur Radio aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday, October 27th, 2015

This story covers a process that took 366 days from first discussion to its final success.

The LeadersGordon Scannell, KD8COJ. Overall leader and proponent of making this contact.

Mary Vardy, Dearborn Schools STEM Coordinator.

Larry Koziel, K8MU, AMSAT member and the experienced hand in the ARISS contact.

The Process timeline October 26, 2014: Gordon Scannell, KD8COJ, contacts FARL President Roger Reini, KD8CSE, about participation in an

ARISS contact.

November 7, 2014: First meeting between Gordon, Roger, and David Treharne, N8HKU

December 2, 2014: Gordon has equipment and personnel help from the Warren Consolidated contact team. Larry Koziel, N8MU, joins the team, who will be a major experienced help to the project.

December 11, 2014: The Berry Center chosen, Gordon has pictures from the roof, showing a clear sky in most directions, and a good way to get people and cables to the roof through an access panel.

December 15, 2014: Proposal completed and sent to the ARISS group.

January 28, 2015: ARISS has accepted the proposal for the 1st stage of the process, with a public announcement on Jan 30, 2015.

February 23, 2015: Conference call with AMSAT mentors to go over the process.

February 26, 2015: ARISS mentors assigned.

April 1, 2015: AMSAT and NASA propose the week of October 26th as the target contact time.

July 1, 2015- August 5, 2015: Gathering equipment and planning to erect it. The Berry Center will allow installation to begin in the fall with the start of the school year.

August 27, 2015: Team listens to an ARISS contact with Maconaquah Schools in Indiana. With just vertical antennas, a good amount of the contact was heard.

September 30, 2015: The main antenna is brought to the Berry Center and hauled onto the roof. The concrete block anchors were hauled up through the hatch to the roof with a rope.

October 12, 2015: The APRS beacon was heard at the site using the erected antennas.

October 20, 2015: AMSAT and NASA confirm the target contact date as Tuesday, October 27th, 12:05pm, This will be a 10 minute pass.

October 22, 2015: Contact with the Grand Rapids School district planned. Team attempts to listen in using back up coax on both antennas, since the primary coax has a broken connector. Only APRS is heard on both antennas, as NASA scrubs the contact for 24 hours at the last minute.

October 23, 2015: Contact is heard from the Grand Rapids site. Backup eggbeater antenna does not have a strong signal, so the vertical will be used for the backup.

October 27, 2015: Gathering at the Berry Center. Antennas and radios are rechecked. Practice runs are made with the equipment and the room audio. The grade school kids are lined up with their questions. The auditorium is filled with older students, parents, administrators and teachers. Steve from Henry Ford Community College gives a talk about the Mars Landers, and Larry Koziel talks about the contact. The contact is made about 12:06pm, and 15 of the 18 students are able to talk to Dr. Kjell Lindgren during the pass.

Equipment PlanAMSAT has an extensive equipment plan that

was to be met in order to be considered for the contact. This list of equipment is unusual for any single amateur to have, so it takes a team effort to secure this equipment.

The plan includes a primary station, and a complete back-up station, with power supply back-ups in case of an electric grid failure. There is only one chance at success. As was stated in the book and movie about Apollo 13: “Failure is Not an Option!”

Recommended Equipment and Actual Equipment

LMR-400

The MARS Presentation

By Steve Murrell, Henry Ford College, a short talk about Mars Landers to warm us up about the upcoming ISS contact.

The Students ready with the Questions

18 questions chosen from students’ submissions from across the district

The Auditorium

18 students with questions, 60 students total, 80 attendees, 6,500 Dearborn School views internal live during the event.

The Equipment Desk

Primary Radio:

Kenwood TS-2000

Backup Radio:

Icom IC-910

Primary Power supply

Polarization Switch

Rotor Controls

Orbital software with Auto Rotor

Control

Phone for a NASA call, if

needed

Uninterruptable Power Supply

Practice

We had a student practice speaking. Notice the lines on the floor to show where to stand.

Astronaut Kjell Lindgren

NASA Astronaut-Bachelor of Science in Biology (minor in Mandarin Chinese)-Master of Science degree in Cardiovascular Physiology -Doctorate of Medicine-Masters in Public Health Dr. Lindgren is board certified in emergency medicine and aerospace medicine.

Dr. Lindgren launched into orbit on July 22, 2015, aboard a Soyuz rocket. He arrived at the ISS a few hours later, and is expected to stay for 5 months.

Making Initial Contact

Students at the Mike

Each student had his or her turn at the microphone to talk to the Astronaut and listen to his reply!

The Contact via You Tubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=hbhrQiZ62LEContact starts at 1:02 into the

fileContact made at 1:02:41First question at 1:03:21Contact faded at 1:11:22

◦Contact time: ~8 min, 41 seconds◦16/18 questions asked, 15 readable

answers.

Post Audio AnalysisQuestion Answer

1 audio feedback good

2 good started good / middle fuzzy but copy

3 good entire audio good

4 little audio feeback entire audio good

5 little audio feeback entire audio good

6 good entire audio good

7 good entire audio good (funny answer)

8 good - little audio feedback entire audio good (funny answer)

9 good entire audio good

10 good entire audio good

11 good entire audio good

12 good entire audio good (funny answer)

13 quiet little audio feedback entire audio good

14 good entire audio good

15 good started getting fuzzy

16 good - little audio feedback started loosing signal

There was a lot of audio feedback due to the speaker set up in the auditorium. 16 out of the 18 prepared questions were asked, but the signal faded on answer 16. We had 2 students unable to ask their question.

The Amateur Radio Crew

Steve, K8KQYGordon, KD8COJ

David, N8HKU

John, AA8UUGerry, K8GT

Roger, KD8CSE

Larry, K8NU

Rich, K8RMM

Notes and Findings1. Putting this event together is months of hard work.

Credit to Gordon for a year of effort, and to Larry for his extensive help of equipment, time, and expertise. Also, Steve, K8KQY, was at the site for assembly many days.

2. The equipment list is extensive, but we seemed to need every bit of it. That 19ft beam only gave us 85% of the 10 minute operating time, even with polarization control and a mast amplifier. The polarization control made a big difference. You can see us in the video switching it to get a better signal, then later trying to switch it again, quickly switching it back. The ISS is only running 5 watts with a simple dipole antenna, which seems to be directional down toward Earth.

Notes and Findings3. Practice helps. We checked and rechecked almost

everything, including a live listen, discovering we were on SSB instead of FM. We also had some of the kids practice with us. Some of them forgot to speak loudly, so it was good that we had sent up the questions in order ahead of time.

4. Audio in the room: We checked out the room audio a bit late: While the audio we used to talk to the assembly in the room worked well with one of Gerry’s microphone, the same cannot be said for the radio microphone. The radio microphone was really too close to the room speakers, resulting in a audio howl during some of the kid’s transmissions. Put the radio microphone as far from the room audio as possible, and check it out days before the event, when there is time to safely move the set up.

Notes and Findings5. Logistics are important: We spent time with

each student rehearsing their question, and had them lined up in the order we sent up the questions to the astronaut. We also had marked positions on the floor where they would stand. This worked well to send the questions up to the ISS in a very timely manner.

6. Video: It was great that we had video streaming. The microphone was not able to connect to the audio board, as the laptop-based system lacked any non-USB audio input. The video audio would have been better if we could have patched in a cable.

Notes and Findings7. Tracking the station: The time went by in a

hurry, and we could see approximately how much time we had left. We forgot to put the tracking program on the big screen, due to the way the Mars presentation was displayed. The audience would have enjoyed seeing it.

8. A few disappointed students: The student with question 16 did not hear the answer, and Q17 and Q18 never got asked. Perhaps giving a very brief msg at 50% of the time left to the astronaut may have helped, but we could not easily predict how long the pass would hold.

Notes and Findings9. The event was very special, and the adults in the

audience had “goosebumps.” It was amazing that we could talk to someone flying over our heads at 17,500 miles per hour. With all of the high-tech wizardry of cell phones and the Internet, the ability to make a direct contact up to space using only the equipment on the site was absolutely special. Only a very select few become astronauts, and they are a brave and intelligent group for sure.

10. The local media reported the story in a great, positive way. These are great stories about Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), along with a story about a bunch of people who spend countless hours and a lot of money doing a hobby just “for the love of it”, the definition of an Amateur.

ResourcesThe author wishes to thank the

following individuals and organizations for the material used in this presentation.◦Gordon Scannell, KD8COJ◦Richard Maske, K8RMM◦The Dearborn School District◦YouTube◦NASA◦AMSAT◦Ford Amateur Radio League, K8UTT