ISS Fan Club

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: NEW RECORD Set Via ISS
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2008 13:02:05 -0700
From: Scott Avery

Today at 1803 UTC, Ron AH6RH and I made the FIRST packet QSO/exchange
via ISS's digipeater RS0ISS. We had several pings on my 1 minute 20 second mutual visibility pass between us. See http://www.ariss.net/

Ever since ISS packet/voice was activated, I was looking for a partner
on the east side of the Big Island of Hawaii to do this. I sent out blind emails to all hams in the area. Looked at packet from Hawaii etc...Finally about 3 years ago, I met up with Ron, AH6RH who shared my goal. For the past few years we have been trying to make this first contact. Between ISS packet being off the air, and limited times to try with work etc, it finally became a reality today! I did my victory DX dance when Ron called me from Hawaii screaming in excitement!

Thanks to ARISS for it's support of amateur radio on the ISS.

73, Scott WA6LIE
CM96eq

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Scott, WA6LIE and I hooked up on 145.825 simplex on a very low pass (3 degrees max, 2.5 degrees at the start of the mutual window). The mutual window was about a minute 20 seconds or so. The first packet was at 01-NOV-2008, 19:02:06z, and a two way established at 19:02:25z. The exchanges were:

[09:02:06] AH6RH-7>WA6LIE,RS0ISS-4*:
[09:02:06] Ping...# 36

[09:02:17] WA6LIE-3>CQ,RS0ISS-4*:
[09:02:17] :AH6RH :Aloha Ron? From California CM96eq

[09:02:25] AH6RH-7>WA6LIE,RS0ISS-4*:
[09:02:25] :WA6LIE :59 from hawaii

[09:02:30] WA6LIE-3>CQ,RS0ISS-4*:
[09:02:30] :AH6RH :PING!!

[09:02:47] WA6LIE-3>CQ,RS0ISS-4*:
[09:02:47] =3641.15N\12137.30WSScott & Mary's Shack and Satgate Salinas Ca. CM96eq {UISS52}

There were other packets. The last packet from Hawaii to California was:

[09:03:31] AH6RH-7>WA6LIE,ARISS:
[09:03:31] :WA6LIE :bl11

I was packet satellite mobile at Bellows Beach, (now known as Bellows Air Force Station), running an Icom IC-910H at about 60 watts, into an Arrow Antenna vertically polarized, mounted on a Bogan 3221 video tripod, pointed at about 60 degrees north (12 degrees to the left of the car), 2 degrees elevation. TNC was a KPC-3+, running Bob Bruninga's program for controlling his APRS satellites (which does a good job of logging packets with timestamps). Many thanks to Bob for past opportunities to work with him on APRS and satellites.

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Between midnight and 2:30 am this morning while providing overnight security for another event, I spent the time bench testing and verifying the configuration of each piece of equipment, calculating the mutual window, elevation, azimuth, range and doppler in five second increments to figure out the exact moment and location of acquisition and loss of signal onto a notepad, then repacking everything into the car for this morning's contact.

I asked Scott to check the spots on ISSFANCLUB.COM about an hour prior to the contact, and to text message me on my cell phone enroute with the status.

I got to the site and set up the equipment with about five minutes spare time. At the start of my AOS (Acquisition of Signal) I just kept PING'ing away and waited intently to hear the packets returning. Moments later, when I heard them starting to return and when the audio got solid, I could see the messages appearing on the PC screen. I knew we were in business. Two minutes later would be the start of the mutual 1 minute, 20 second window. When the time (9:02:05 local) came, I kept PING'ing away so that Scott would know his view to the ISS was good, and it was such a thrill to see his packet pop on my screen! I switched to "send" mode and IM'ed him a line giving him a 59 from Hawaii! The Q was in the bag, and in the log! Thank you Richard Garriot, Mike Finke, ARISS and ARRL for making the last piece possible!

It's great that both Scott and I had computers that were synched to UTC, so the times in the logs are in alignment. Scott ran the contact from a standard amateur satellite station at home (complete with Az/El tracking rotators and circularly polarized beams). Scott tells me the QSO was good for 2,400 statute miles.

Looking forward to our next adventure in ARISS land.....Go ISSFANCLUB! Alain, you're the man!

Ron Hashiro, AH6RH
Honolulu, HI
Operating from BL11di
Reporting from home at BL11bh