Anousheh Calling CQ from ISS
Comment by Peter G. — September 25, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
Ham radio (amateur radio) operators around the world have the chance to talk directly with Anousheh during her stay on the International Space Station (ISS).
On September 24, 8:20 UTC Anousheh’s voice was heard on 145.800 MHz over southern Europe, when she was calling: “CQ CQ this is RS0ISS (Romeo Sierra Zero India Sierra Sierra) from International Space Station calling for anyone in Iran.””
You can listen here:
http://www.ticket-to-mars.org/ansari_via_rs0iss.wav
[Thanks to Christian in Austria, who recorded Anousheh's voice on Ham Radio]
Anousheh was heard again on September 25, around 07:10 UTC when she was calling CQ over Europe and looking for ham radio stations in Iran for a contact with students.
She was very active last Thursday or Friday over Central US and several people had the chance to talk to her.
Anousheh was trained on how to make ham radio contacts with Earth during her cosmonaut training in Star City near Moscow. There is a permanent Amateur Radio station aboard the International Space Station (ARISS) and all cosmonauts and astronauts get a training and individual callsign after finishing the ham radio examinations.
Anousheh does not have a personal license yet but has been granted operator privilidges to use the RS0ISS callsign according to Russian regulations. She was planning to get her license but her flight being moved up 6 months prevented her from doing so.
The first ham station in space was set up in shuttle Columbia in December 1983 by astronaut Owen Garriott who used his amateur callsign W5LFL for voice contacts with amateur radio operators on the ground.
The russians even got further and installed a permanent ham radio station onboard MIR. The first all-ham station crew: Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov mounted an amateur radio antenna on the outer surface of Mir station in 1988. Back inside, Titov (callsign U1MIR), Manarov (U2MIR) and Valery Polyakov (U3MIR) used a two-watt amateur radio transceiver to call CQ from their new home and chat with hams on the ground.
The ham radio activities on MIR and later on the ISS became a regular and permanent institution. Many radio amateurs around the world had the chance to talk to the crew onboard, clearly something which they will not forget and which inspired many. In addition, more and more contacts with schools were arranged, where kids and students could ask questions to the astronauts and get first hand experience. Beside these activities, the ham radio station also serves as a back-up for the internal communication links. In fact, there was at least one occassion were this was used for some emergency traffic. Also this communication is “uncensored” and during the changes in the former USSR, ham radio was in the beginning the only source for independed informations for the crew onboard MIR, which did not know what was going on on the ground..
