Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, AKA “Lord British” from Ultima, is currently on board the International Space Station as a “Space Tourist”. While Space Tourists are cool and all, what makes Garriott special is that A. He is the son of Owen Garriott, who did the first Amateur Radio transmission from space, and B. he is actively using Amateur Radio during his stay on board the ISS.
I, along with many other Amateur Radio operators have been monitoring his transmissions over the past couple of days. Today, since I was home telecommuting, I snuck out for a few passes with my Yagi to monitor the ISS passes. The first one was the most momentous as after his Slow Scan TV (SSTV) transmissions he quickly popped on the frequency and talked to a few stations.
- Oct 16th, 09:32EDT ISS pass (MP3, 7:38, 3.1MB)
The next few passes were SSTV only, and the last pass, while trasmitting SSTV, the camera was acting up and sending back a black picture. Whoops!
Without further ado, here are the shots that I picked up today:
You can get more information on Garriott’s space trip at richardinspace.com
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That’s pretty cool. I hadn’t heard about the new guy up there. I’ll have to take the Arrow outside when there’s a good pass. I’ve never done SSTV, but I’d like to sometime.
73,
N4BWR
Posted by Blake Raab on October 16th, 2008.
Great job! I haven’t been as successful at getting the pics as you have been. I’ll still be trying though. I couldn’t play the mp3 file that is linked. I’ll wait for another pass over my qth and try to get something. 73′s
Carlos
Posted by Carlos on October 16th, 2008.
Not bad for a kid who tried to contact the space shuttle 10 years ago with a $10.00 antenna and an upside down wheelbarell. Great Job
Posted by Tim on October 20th, 2008.