[amsat-bb] Thursday's ARISS contact

[Tom]

As one of the folks involved in this, below is some information. Someone 
talked about the added stress. Trust me, its there. I've got forty years 
in as a broadcast engineer, and this "remote" has me very uptight! I 
will be running the audio mix for the event. From the audio out of the 
rig, into the gym audio system, and feeding a 16 port media box, to 
running audio from the handheld mic back into the rig, if that fails, 
its me. We are using a hand held EV mic, with a aux feed from the board 
into the TS-2000. I have a pendant switch (nurse call like) that 
controls the PTT, and there is a broadcast "On the Air" light to let 
everyone know when the mic is hot.

And who is running the radio setup? Doug Paypay, KD8CAO. I have no 
concerns. :)  And Mike Wolthuis, KB8ZGL and the crew form the Lowell ARC 
has done an amazing job in installing the antennas. Mike will be the 
local and radio host. The local cable TV access channel will have a 4 
camera setup (including one on the roof antennas) and will be producing 
a 30 minute program on it.

I am looking forward to the event, and looking forward to LOS time even 
more!

More info:

The West Michigan Aviation Academy
(http://www.westmichiganaviation.org) has been approved and scheduled
for a ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) contact
with Kjell Lindgren (KO5MOS).

The ground station was put on loan from the Greenville Amateur Radio
Club (KD8RXD) and the event supported by the Lowell Amateur Radio Club
(W8LRC) and the Holland Amateur Radio Club (K8DAA).  The event is being
taped with multiple cameras and is expected to be available on NASATV
(http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/) during the contact (possibly a
bit delayed).

Up to date information is available on twitter at #ISS_Ham_Radio
(https://twitter.com/ISS_Ham_Radio).

If you would like to stream the live audio to your local repeater
and/or listen it is available from several planned sources as follows:
IRLP – the Great Lakes Reflector – Channel 9617, Echolink – the
*MICHIGAN*  conference – Node #96170.  The audio stream will also be
available for any regular MP3 stream capable player (ie. iTunes,
WinAmp, Windows Media Player, etc) at the URL:
http://stream.kb8zgl.net:8000

Additional links with video as well as audio may be available, but
waiting on a final website for that – follow the twitter feed for
further updates.  Many local news teams are also planning to be on hand
from West Michigan – tune in to your favorite news station to see if
we make the news!

If you have any questions, please feel free to send them to event
coordinator Mike Wolthuis – KB8ZGL email addresskb8zgl at kb8zgl.net


Tom Bosscher K8TB