[amsat-bb] AMSAT at 2015 ScienceCity/Tucson Festival of Books - report

[Stefan Wagener]

Thank you Pat,

very nice report and great work. Much appreciated!

Stefan

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK) <
amsat-bb at wd9ewk.net> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> AMSAT was part of the K7UAZ Amateur Radio Club's booth at the 2015 Science
> City/Tucson Festival of Books, which combined a book fair with a science
> fair on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson last weekend.  AMSAT
> was present on Saturday. A local radio club, the Oro Valley Amateur Radio
> Club
> (W0HF), was there all weekend. This event is a joint effort between the
> University of Arizona and the Arizona Daily Star newspaper in Tucson. The
> university side of the event, the science fair, had representation from
> many
> colleges and departments on the campus, including the K7UAZ radio club. The
> newspaper managed the book fair.  The university took good care of the many
> volunteers, with bottled water available all weekend, and lunches as well.
> With temperatures going as high as 94F/34C on Saturday afternoon, the water
> was appreciated by all working at this event.
>
> During Saturday, the K7UAZ booth had two HF stations in operation, another
> station demonstrating SDR technologies, and my satellite station.  The SDR
> station was copying ADS-B data from aircraft flying around southern
> Arizona,
> which was plotted on a map for the crowds to see. The HF stations were busy
> making contacts on different bands. The satellite station, which was set up
> in front of the booth, was on the air for several passes on Saturday. My
> @WD9EWK Twitter feed:
>
> http://twitter.com/WD9EWK
>
> has lots of photos I took throughout the day. I also uploaded a short video
> showing the K7UAZ booth, which is available at:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puzNyK1y5zM
>
> Throughout Saturday, 14 satellite contacts were made using 4 different
> amateur
> satellites (AO-7, AO-73, FO-29, SO-50) and the International Space Station,
> with stations across the USA and Mexico. The satellite activity started
> with
> an SO-50 pass just before the official start of the event at 9.30am (1630
> UTC), and wrapped up with an FO-29 pass in the final half-hour. One
> contact was
> made using the ISS packet digipeater, between WD9EWK and Craig N6RSX in
> southern California, by exchanging APRS messages just before noon (1900
> UTC).
> With the buildings and the intense RF environment around the university, my
> windows for these passes were no more than 5 to 7 minutes per pass. Sorry
> if
> I was not able to work you during Saturday.
>
> I had uploaded the contacts I made on Saturday to Logbook of the World, but
> there was an error in that upload. I will fix that tonight, and do another
> upload. In addition to LOTW, I will have QSL cards available for those who
> want that form of confirmation. Please e-mail me with the QSO details, and
> I
> will mail a card out to you if you are in my log. It is not necessary to
> first
> send me a QSL card or SASE to get my QSL card.
>
> Unfortunately, due to my schedule, I was not able to stay in Tucson for the
> Sunday half of the event. The K7UAZ club reported the same sort of crowds
> on
> Sunday at their booth, and for the event in general. Local media reports
> are
> stating the organizers estimated the attendance for this event at
> approximately 130,000 for the weekend. I have no reason to doubt that
> count,
> given the crowds I saw all day on Saturday.
>
> Many thanks to Kirk Krentzel N7VGJ and the K7UAZ club for inviting AMSAT to
> be a part of this fun weekend. With so many people, this was a great way to
> show off amateur radio, and in particular this corner of our hobby. Next
> year's event is scheduled for 12-13 March 2016, and I hope to be there and
> representing AMSAT for the entire weekend.
>
> 73!
>
>
>
>
>
> Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK
> http://www.wd9ewk.net/
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