International Space Station Contact

ISS Contact Audio Recording

ISS Contact Audio Recording

W5KWQ contact

Equipment used

Arrow 144 satellite antenna
Camera tripod
Yaesu vx7r 5 w handheld radio

Time of contact October 21 2008 19:14 utc

Contact was made on a field next to Chickmont foods. Geoff Goddard was present not licensed at the time but now 8P6AT.

I was attempting to show Geoff space communications. We knew there was an upcoming pass so we set up for the attempt

The pass was a north to south pass with max elevation of about 60 deg

The vx7r was pre programmed to allow quick switching for Doppler shift.

As the ISS broken our horizon I began my call. For a while I heard nothing and began to check my altitude and azimuth data

I used a small micro recorder to record the contact.

Much to my surprise Richard Garriott W5KWQ came back to my call

Richards father was the first Ham in space. 25 years later Richard paid Russia 10 million usd to spend 10 days on the ISS. Richard attempted to convince the US to take him up but they would not have it so he went to the Russians. They took him there and back in a Soyuz. Richard is a civilian not a professional astronaut. Richard got his tech license because he thought it would be cool to talk to people from space. I got my license because I thought it would be cool to talk to people in space. Richard made 500 contacts in the 10 days he was in space and I talked to him twice. As far as I know I was his only double contact.

I have also made contact with the ISS on several other occasions , The Russian space station MIR and also the space shuttle.

It’s lots of fun try it sometime.

73’s

8P9HA
Edward.