Category Archives: Space

Articles and other information related to Space Communications using Satellites, High-Altitude Balloons, Earth-Moon-Earth (EME), etc.

Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter, Space, Youth Activities

ISS Crew Contact Part 3 – Summary of Our Preparations

Nashua Area Radio Society preparations for our upcoming ISS Crew Contact at Hudson Memorial School (HMS) are almost complete. All of our gear is tested and packed, our press release is written, we’ve alterted local news media folks, the students have put together their questions, and have practiced for their contact.

Prioritized ISS Passes for our Crew Contact
Prioritized ISS Passes for our Crew Contact

We are just awaiting notification of the final date and time for our contact and we’ll begin final setup and testing at HMS.

We’ve been sharing our progress as we’ve on the Nashua Area Radio Society’s Youth Forum as we have worked through our final preparations. I also would like to share a summary here along with some insights on what we’ve learned along the way.

An ISS Crew Contact is No Small Undertaking …

Satellite Station 3.0 Antenna System Test
ISS Antenna System Test

We have been working for almost a year now to get ready for our contact. We’ve built and tested two space ground stations and we’ve discovered and addressed several performance and reliability issues with these stations during trial deployments at Field Day, Ham Fests, License Classes, and during testing here at our QTH.

Hudson Memorial School ARISS Contact Preparations
Space Field Trip at HMS

Dan, AC1EN and the faculty team at HMS have expended a great deal of effort with the students at their school to prepare for our contact. Their activities have included:

  • Leading the ARISS Crew Contact Application Process for our contact
  • Integration of Radio Space Science concepts into their student curriculum
  • A Skype contact with a NASA Engineer
  • Visiting the Boston Museum of Science special exhibit on Space and the International Space Station
  • A High Altitude Balloon Project with the Nashua Area Radio Society to learn about Atmospheric Science and Space Communications
  • Space-related student projects including building rovers, participating in an egg drop, and having their pre-engineering program students work on solutions for the ISS
  • Holding a Field Astronomy and STEM night for students and building Amateur Radio into the school’s annual STEM Nights

Audio-Visual Elements are Important and as Challenging as the Ground Station Equipment…

Sound System Mixer
Sound System Mixer

We planned from the very start to provide a shared, multimedia experience as part of our contact. Our plans included:

  • Providing a professional-quality audio and video experience for the students, parents, and faculty members at HMS during our contact
  • Creating a high-quality Video Capture of our Contact
  • Live Streaming our Contact to Facebook so that more Students, Parents, and the Amateur Radio Community could participate in our contact in real-time

Dave, K1DLM who is a member of NARS had extensive professional sound experience and was able to help us with this part of our project.

Audio System for ISS Contact
Audio System for ISS Contact

Dave put together a professional-level A-V system design to support our contact and provided much of the gear to realize the design. His uses a pair of communications microphones, a pro-mixer, and audio interface gear to provide student and radio audio to the sound system in the auditorium at HMS as well as to an array of video cameras. The system makes extensive use of XLR cabling and pro-level devices to ensure clean audio.

Video Presence on the Internet is an Important Element to Draw Interest in a Project Such as Ours…

We Live Streamed some of our Station Testing activities to Facebook and we were amazed at the interest and response that we received. Many folks worldwide followed our progress on Facebook in real-time as we set up and completed our full station test.

ISS Antenna Camera Test
ISS Antenna Camera Test

We are planning to have two IP Video Cameras Live Streaming to Facebook during our contact. One in the room to provide video of the students as they talk with the astronaut on the ISS and a second on our antennas as they track the ISS.

Its Critically Important to Test the Complete Station Ahead Of Time – New Challenges Emerged when we Mixed Audio and Radio Gear…

Station Test with Audio Gear
Full Station Setup and Test

We set up the full station (Primary and Backup) along with all of the Audio and Video Gear about 3 weeks prior to our contact for a complete system test. We learned a great deal in doing this and we encountered several problems which we have since corrected.

Station Test - On The Air!
On-Air Station Test

The most important issues did not show themselves until we made some contacts with all of the A-V gear in place. We had problems with RF aggravated ground loops in the radio microphone circuits during the initial test. These problems did not show themselves until we added the audio mixer and sound system into the station.

Audio Isolation Transformer
Audio Isolation Transformer

These problems were easily corrected by adding Audio Isolation Transformers into the radio microphone circuits.

XLR Line to Microphone Level Attenuator
XLR Line to Microphone Level Attenuator

We also solved some potential issues related to level differences between line and microphone audio circuits using Audio Attenuators.

These problems were not difficult to solve but they would have seriously degraded our contact if we had not discovered them early while there was still plenty of time to secure parts and retest.

Data Networks in Schools and Public Places Require Configuration Adjustments to Support Contact Elements…

Data Network Test at HMS
Data Network Test at HMS

Schools and other public places typically do a good job of protecting their data networks and users from threats from both the Internet and within the venue. Tracking Programs, IP Cameras for Live Streaming, and other contact support gear are not typical devices that would be in operation on such networks. Also, many public venues rely almost exclusively on WiFi for access to the Internet and typically prohibit or severely limit client devices from communicating with each other.

WiFi can often suffer from RF interference issues when many devices like Smart Phones are located together in a small area. This situation is common in large gatherings.

Data System for ISS Contact
Data System for ISS Contact

We had quite a bit of experience with these problems as part of other school projects we’ve done. Our approach is to use a wired network with a local Ethernet switch for communications between the elements in our stations.

The HMS IT team at configured their network to fix the IP addresses of our devices. They also adjust their firewall rules so that our devices have the required access to the Internet. The IP cameras where the most challenging elements here.

Packed and Ready to Go…

Equipment Packing and Protection
Equipment Packing and Protection

Well, all of our gear is packed and ready to go for setup on-site at HMS. The next article in this series will cover the on-site set up for our contact.

Fred, AB1OC

Featured, General, Newsletter, Space, Youth Activities

Hudson Memorial School Preparations for the ARISS Contact

Things are now moving full speed as ahead as we quickly close in on our Amateur Radio contact with the International Space Station.  While preparing for this contact began over a year ago the rush is now on to complete the last pieces required to create a successful contact.  Teachers and students from grades 5 – 8 are working through space and radio curriculum applications, preparing questions for the astronauts, and excitedly waiting to hear about our official ISS contact time.

Preparation for the contact began over a year ago with the ARISS application process.  This is the process which brought my school and me into the amazing world of Amateur Radio.  The application asked us to prove that we provided several opportunities for our students to access curriculum centered around the concepts of radio and space sciences.  In our application, I was able to include that our 6th-grade science curriculum covered space, our 8th-grade science curriculum covered radio communications, we annually hold an Astronomy and STEM night for all students, and our 7th-grade team already provided a skype contact with a NASA Engineer after their Science Fiction unit.  We have since included new opportunities for students to access space and radio sciences by participating in a High Altitude Balloon launch, planting seeds that were brought to the International Space Station, visiting the Boston Museum of Science for the special exhibit on space and the international space station, building rovers and participating in an egg drop, having our pre-engineering program work on solutions for the ISS, and building amateur radio into our annual STEM nights.

One of the best parts of working toward this contact has been the relationship that has been forged with the Nashua Area Radio Society.  The application suggested that we reach out and partner with a local radio club.  I believe we lucked out being located just across the bridge from NARS and that there are so many members dedicated to helping students discover Amateur Radio.  Without this relationship, this contact would never have been possible.  This relationship provided us with the ability to expose students to Amateur Radio through a comprehensive curriculum with the High-Altitude Balloon Launch, chances for students to get on the air at our annual STEM night and through our hosting of their ARRL Field Day activities.  We have also been able to work to provide student amateur radio licensing in our first school licensing course and our new school radio club.

In just the past few weeks preparation has accelerated as we near our possible contact dates.  Students and teachers from the 5th through 8th grade worked on questions to ask the astronauts.  Staff was provided with previously asked questions and links to NASA and ISS research.  In just a few short weeks questions rolled in from the students at all levels.  Teachers that teach ELA, Social Studies, Math, Science, PLTW, and 5th grade were invested in helping students developing thoughtful questions.  In the end, we had a stack of over 300 questions to chose from.  Students questions ranged from inquiries about science experiments to how the ISS provides clean air for the astronauts to breath.  It was an incredibly difficult process to narrow down the questions to twenty-three and then to select the fourteen students that would ask questions.  One might ask why we only went with fourteen students.  The answer is simply that with a ten-minute contact window, we wanted to make sure that every student asking questions would get a chance to talk to the astronauts before the end of the contact.  While there are twenty-three prepared questions that include entries from other anonymous students, we wanted to make sure every direct participant had this once in a lifetime experience and did not get left out because the pass ends before they asked their question.

Along with questions, we have had to provide a story about our local school to the ARISS people as a bio of our school population.  We are working now on a media press release that will be sent to WMUR, Hudson Cable Television, the Nashua Telegraph, and the Hudson Litchfield News as soon as we have our final contact date.  We are working with the students that are selected to go over how to ask their questions, what the set-up will look like on the day of the contact, and how close to the microphone they need to be to make sure their question is heard.  We are also working on how and what additional programming we will present to the school during the week of the contact and during the thirty minutes before the preparation.

It still amazes me how much our staff and students have learned about amateur radio and the ISS in just one year.  I know that I myself have grown immensely in my knowledge and understanding of a hobby and interest that I knew nothing about just two summers ago.  My one hope for my students after this contact is that we inspire more students to take an interest in science, space, the ISS, and amateur radio.   Who knows, maybe someday we will be contacting someone in space who sat in our auditorium during our ARISS contact.

A sincere thank you to everyone at the school and members of the Nashua Area Radio Society that are working so hard to make sure that our students get to experience this once in a lifetime event.  Your efforts are noticed and greatly appreciated.

Dan, AC1EN

Education and Training, Featured, General, Newsletter, Space, Youth Activities

ISS Crew Contact Part 1 – Ground Station Design and Construction

Our planned ISS Crew Contact is almost here! It will take place sometime during the first week of December (December 3rd – 8th) and we are busy finalizing our Ground Station and preparing for our contact. The link below is the first in a series of articles that are planned to describe steps in this project and the actual contact experience. The first article explains the Design, Construction, and Testing of the two Ground Stations that are required as well as plans for connecting them to the Audio-Video and Data systems at the school.

Source: ISS Crew Contact Part 1 – Ground Station Design and Construction

Fred, AB1OC

Radio Amateurs Developing Skills Worldwide