Articles and other information about Ham Radio activities for young people. Our youth activities include GOTA events, our High Altitude Balloon project, help getting licensed and more.
The Nashua Area Radio Society has partnered with Bishop Guertin High School for several years on STEM and Amateur Radio activities. The latest activity is the Bishop Guertin ISS Contact.
Astronaut Shannon Walker, KD5DXB
The recent Bishop Guertin ISS Contact with Astronaut Shannon Walker has had quite a bit of media coverage. There is news of the Contact everywhere that you look. You will find coverage of the students talking with Shannon Walker on the ISS on TV, in Newspapers, on the Radio, and on the Internet,
Television Coverage
After the conclusion of the Contact, a reporter from WMUR interviewed the BGHS students over Zoom. The story was on all of their evening news broadcasts on Friday as well as Saturday morning. Readers can view the story below.
The Bishop Guertin Students were also interviewed for Boston TV.
The BGHS students and their partnership with the Nashua Area Radio Society were featured in a spot on WCVB News in Boston on Tuesday, February 23rd. You can view the video and an article about the contact at this link on their website.
The BGHS ARISS contact was also featured on the front page of the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper. Here is a link to the article on the Union Leader’s website.
The Nashua Telegraph published an article announcing the contact on February 18th. The article can be found at this link.
On YouTube
You can watch the Contact in its entirety below. The video includes a great introductory program with a video made by the BGHS students.
We will keep an eye out for additional media coverage of the contact and add links to this article as we see them.
We have been working with the students and faculty at Bishop Guertin H.S. (BGHS) here in Nashua, New Hampshire for several years now. This is the story of their planned contact with the International Space Station (ISS).
Amateur Radio STEM Learning Projects
The STEM Club at BGHS has done quite a few Amateur Radio-related project with us.
BGHS students and their Teacher Ready to Launch the HAB
All of this has led to several students and their teacher becoming licensed Amateur Radio operators.
A Contact with the ISS
Karen KC1KBW – BGHS Teacher Building a Kit
We owe a lot of thanks to Karen Crivac, KC1KBW who is a teacher at BGHS. Karen has been providing tremendous support and encouragement for our work to bring Amateur Radio to the students at BGHS. Karen holds a General Class Amateur Radio license.
The process of securing an ISS contact experience involved a lot of work to create a quality STEM-learning program leading up to and after a Contact with the ISS. Karen and the faculty at BGHS did a great job with this and were awarded a Contact late last year.
John, AC1EV Helps a Student Get On The Air
Contacts with the ISS are arranged by ARISS. I serve as both a Mentor and a Ground Staton as part of the ARISS program. I have had the pleasure of serving as the ARISS Mentor for the Bishop Guertin contact. The Nashua Area Radio Society is also BGHS’s partner Amateur Radio club. Jon Turner, AC1EV has been working closely with Bishop Guertin to help them to prepare for their contact.
BGHS Calling NA1SS, Do You Copy?
The students at BGHS have been working on creating questions to ask their Astronaut during their upcoming contact. Many BG students submitted candidate questions.
There is only time for about 20 questions to be asked during the actual contact so the students in STEM Club create the video above to answer some of the questions that did not make the final list for their contact. You can click on the video above to hear the questions and the answers from the STEM Club team.
Here are the questions that the students at BGHS are planning to ask their Astronaut:
Aya, KC1JEB – What landmark on Earth looks the most amazing from space?
Shea – What day to day task is most challenging in space?
Brandon – What inspired you to become an astronaut?
Ian, KC1ONS – What experiments are you currently working on?
Christopher, KC1KBY – Can you share with us what you like best about being in space?
Ella – What does a typical day look like for you?
Connor- What is something new you learned in space?
Ethan – What did you bring from Earth to remind you of home?
Lindsay – What part of space travel is most exciting for you?
Connor – Does being in zero gravity feel like floating in the water?
Aya, KC1JEB – What are some recent discoveries the ISS has made from the experiments conducted in space?
Shea – Upon returning to Earth, how do you plan to re-adjust to gravity?
Brandon – What are your thoughts as you prepare for lift-off?
Ian, KC1ONS – As an experienced astronaut, what advice would you give to a new astronaut heading to the ISS?
Christopher, KC1KBY – How do you treat injuries or illnesses in space?
Ella – Do you have a favorite space food?
Connor – What is the most unusual thing you have seen in space?
Ethan – What part of your training was most challenging?
Lindsay – What happens to your tears in space?
Connor – How do the sun and stars look different in space than on Earth?
T = 0 for Calling the ISS from Bishop Guertin H.S.
Astronaut Shannon Walker, KD5DXB
The pre-contact program for Bishop Guertin’s Contact will begin on Friday, February 18th, 2021 at 12:20 pm eastern time (17:20 UTC). The students at BGHS will be talking with astronaut Shannon Walker, KD5DXB who is onboard the ISS. The ISS will come over the horizon here in New Hampshire, USA at about 12:56 pm eastern time and will plan to make initial contact with Shannon then.
You can view the contact by clicking on the video above.
The Ground Station
AB1OC ARISS Ground Station
I also have the honor of serving as the ARISS Ground Station for BGHS’s contact. It will be my job to establish and maintain the radio link between the students at BGHS and the Shannon on the ISS while the students ask their questions.
The students have been learning much about space and radio technology in preparation for their contact with the ISS. The faculty and administrators at Bishop Guertin have also poured a great deal of time and energy into their contact. I hope that you’ll join us via the live stream and watch the students at BGHS make history!
Hi. My name is Keith Sangillo, KZ1Z (formerly KC1IMK). I would like to thank the Nashua Area Radio Society for hosting the 2020 Student-Teacher Contest. The ICOM IC-7300 radio that I won is in good hands and being put to use.
The first thing I did was take the NARS Extra class in December 2020 and get my Extra license so that I could use “all the bands and frequencies”. It turned out that the weather was a bigger challenge than the test questions. After two days of an online class, a snowstorm turned off the power. My dad and I missed most of the Day 3 class sessions as we searched for friends with power. We arranged to take the test at a friend’s house 30 minutes farther south. The VE’s watched us take the test in a basement storeroom during the pandemic when we were not supposed to be visiting friends.
The first big test for the new radio was Winter Field Day 2021. We pushed out the lawnmower and set up the station in the utility shed.
WFD “shack”
We hung a 20 m inverted V dipole in the adjacent tree and ran the feed line in the window so that we could close the doors when it was windy. We did not use our existing antenna for the shack in the house.
WFD Setup: Deep Cycle battery powering radio and laptop
We went for all the bonus points. The shed is non-insulated and considered outdoors. It was far enough away from the house to be remote. We used battery power.
ICOM IC-7300 from Youth Contest
And yeah, we had no heaters either. We dressed up in ski gear and warmed our hands on several cups of hot chocolate and tea so that we could log contacts with N1MM linked to the radio.
Cold, 5 deg F night OPS
With a single band antenna and part-time operation, I made 27 contacts. With bonus points from freezing my butt off, I sent in 4552 points for NARS. Thanks again for putting on the Student-Teacher Contest and hope to see folks sometime soon.
