At 1:29 UTC (10:29am EDT), 14 students and 6 instructors asked questions of astronaut Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, aboard the ISS (International Space Station). it was part of the “Space Station Camp,” a joint project of the Science Museum of Virginia and six RVA amateur radio clubs with the RARC taking the lead.
Since our RARC station on a hanger at the airport was not stable by the end of May, we elected to used a phone-patch (“telebridge” in ARISS jargon). It was from Tony Huchison, VK5ZAI, in southwestern Australia. Tony’s station is mostly home-brew and highly modified. His website is very interesting at http://www.electric-web.org/.
Dave Taylor, W8AAS, was our mentor. He helped us when we got into the weeds and attended the contact.