Christmas day suprise
Hi Everyone . im in the uniteded kingdom & i have just managed to recieve a braodcast on my childrens hand held wakie talkies from mike fincke on the iss CALL SIGN na1ss i was so shocked... I didn't even know that they where poeple aboard the ISS. I can only assume it was a repeater message as the range on the hand held walkie talkie is only 5miles .. but it did sound like he was talking to me he seemed to ask me for my call sign .The chat Kinda lasted 5mins then they faded away . Can any body explain this for me ? many thanks & happy christmas to all
Mark.
Hull.
England
mark31969 – Sun, 2009 – 01 – 04 07:00
Christmas day suprise
What a luck!!!??
I have been trying to make conntact with ISS for months ....nothing....
then I hear this......
There is no justice in this world.....Hi
Congratulations
9A5BCA
Possibility
I'm guessing your kid's walkie talkies are VHF radios from China. They were probably tuned to ISS amateur radio downlink frequency of 145.80 by chance. The "terresterial range" of them may only be 5 miles but the vertical range is significantly greater and the ISS has a fairly powerful transmitter.
If you are not a licensed amateur radio operator (don't have a government issued callsign) transmitting on the amateur bands is illegal (listen all you want). I'm sure you can check with your government telecom agencies website to get information about how to become a amateur radio operator. In the mean time, you might want to verify the radios you have are operating in the range permitted by your national government.
Kenneth - N5VHO
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/reference/radio/
Support ARISS http://www.amsat-na.com/store/donation.php (select "Human Spaceflight (ARISS))