April 07, 2008

SUCCESSFUL ARISS CONTACT WITH VLADIMIR NAZOR SCHOOL, PAZIN, CROATIA

Monday 7 April 2008 the Vladimir Nazor School 9A7P at Pazin, Croatia, established a direct ARISS contact with US astronaut Garrett Reisman KE5HAE on board the International Space Station.

Elementary school Vladimir Nazor at Pazin is a school with more than 100 years tradition, founded in 1890. It is one of the highest rated schools in this part of the country, with more than 1500 pupils. Robotics, electronics and hamradio activities are more popular every day, with pupils achieving awards in national competitions. Astronomy is one of the latest after-school activities, which combined with existing ham radio activities resulted in applying for the ISS school contact.

Marko Pernic, 9A8MM, the contact coordinator for this ISS contact, set up the satellite radio station 9A7P in the school with automatic antenna tracking as well as a vertical backup antenna. The audience in the shack room was more than 100 people. The audio from this contact was broadcast over EchoLink servers AMSAT and JK1ZRW.

At 14:49 UTC, 16:49 local time, contact was established between the International Space Station and 9A7P. The questions were read by the students. Astronaut Garret Reisman answered 15 questions. He replied for example that it takes just about eight and a half minutes to go into space, but then it takes two more days to dock slowly on the ISS. The signal from space was clear and loud. While Garrett was answering the 15th question, the ISS went over the horizon and the signals went down.

Three national TV stations, three radio stations and five newspapers covered the event.

Congratulations to the Pazin team!

73

Peter Kofler, IN3GHZ

ARISS mentor

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Audio recording