{"id":42646,"date":"2015-03-17T16:24:57","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T14:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/?p=42646"},"modified":"2023-09-24T16:10:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T16:10:49","slug":"high-school-students-speak-with-astronaut-aboard-the-iss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/ham-radio-news\/high-school-students-speak-with-astronaut-aboard-the-iss\/","title":{"rendered":"High School Students Speak With Astronaut Aboard The ISS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script src=\"http:\/\/CBSPHL.images.worldnow.com\/interface\/js\/WNVideo.js?rnd=567027;hostDomain=video.philadelphia.cbslocal.com;playerWidth=620;playerHeight=349;isShowIcon=true;clipId=11155528;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=CBS.PHILLY%252Fworldnowplayer;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=false;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=overlay\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>HOLLAND, Pa., (CBS) \u2014 With a fancy antenna, at least four science teachers, Ham radio technology and sheer determination, students at Council Rock High School South in Holland, Bucks County reached out and touched someone, far, far away. Two hundred twenty-four miles ABOVE the earth \u2014 not across it.<\/p>\n<p>The classroom came to life Thursday as students placed a call to the International Space Station.<br \/>\nTen science and technology students were given the opportunity to ask astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti one question each as the ISS passed directly overhead at 1:18 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Teachers Fred Bauman and Jerry Fetter say they were waking with a window of about eight minutes.<br \/>\n\u201cThey came above the horizon they were probably somewhere over Georgia and when they set they were over Nova Scotia. They came over us at about 275 miles travelling at 17,100 mph.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The scratchy sound of a two-radio tuning in echoed through the auditorium at Council Rock South. This was a day months in the making.<br \/>\nFor student Tom Hyndman, \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s just so cool and interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At an altitude 224 miles, and at a speed of 17, 500 miles an hour, Italian astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, answered a call from Council Rock, from the International Space Station.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you read me???\u201d You could hear through the crackle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe read you loud and clear,\u201d said science teacher Jerry Fetter.<\/p>\n<p>Fetter, Jeff Warmkessel and a team of school colleagues, with education connections to NASA, came up with an out of this world idea. While the International Space Station is hurtling above Pennsylvania, why not call an astronaut?<\/p>\n<p>Of course, a cell signal wouldn\u2019t reach. So Fetter engaged a team of eager Ham Radio operators to get the job done. They jumped without much coaxing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re taking an antenna and aiming at them and they have a small antenna on the space station and we\u2019re having a contact,\u201d said long time ham operator, Irwin Darack.<\/p>\n<p>The mode of communication, ham radio, provided another lesson for students steeped in the ways of Skype, text messaging and social media.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing to see how technology from years ago mashed with technology today to produce such an organic and cool experience.\u201d<br \/>\nKatie Kotsopoulos lined up with other student interviewers to ask about 20 questions. \u201cMy question was how does the 90 minute orbit affect how they work,\u201d said Katie.<\/p>\n<p>The answer? \u201cNot so much,\u201d said Astronaut Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space. \u201cWe work on a regular 24 hour clock. We just go by our watches. \u201d<\/p>\n<p>When questioned about managing weightlessness? \u201cYou have to find a way to secure yourself, otherwise you float away when you try to work.\u201d<br \/>\nThe event is part of a program called ARISS \u2014 Amateur Radio and the International Space Station. They went with ham radio because it never fails \u2013 still the most reliable form of communication.<\/p>\n<p>Katie said the experience blew her mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re talking to someone who is not currently standing on the planet and they\u2019re in space, it\u2019s just fantastic.\u201d<br \/>\nThat\u2019s the reaction that Fetter was eager to hear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStudents today are used to using their cell phones and modern technology to see them get inspired by something that has been used over the decades has been encouraging to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Science student Tom Hyndman is now thinking about giving aerospace a whirl.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to see that technology used years ago matched with technology today produced such an organic and cool experience for everybody really.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Very cool, indeed.<\/p>\n<p><em>By Pat Ciarrocchi and Paul Kurtz<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HOLLAND, Pa., (CBS) \u2014 With a fancy antenna, at least four science teachers, Ham radio technology and sheer determination, students at Council Rock High School South in Holland, Bucks County reached out and touched someone, far, far away. Two hundred twenty-four miles ABOVE the earth \u2014 not across it. The classroom came to life Thursday&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[190,194,195,203,234],"class_list":["post-42646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ham-radio-news","tag-ham","tag-ham_radio","tag-ham-radio","tag-hamradio","tag-info","category-5","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cqdx.ru\/ham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}