Hi!

I just received an e-mail from Paul A35RK on the island of Tonga, who reported having a 5-minute QSO with Bill at NA1SS today (Saturday, 25 February 2006) 1723 UTC. Using an old Kenwood mobile radio (model not specified) running 50 watts into a groundplane antenna. Paul said the signals peaked at S-7 and were nearly full-quieting for the contact. Paul mentioned that Bill asked him to submit his QSL card toward Bill's DXCC award. How about that - the astronaut knows the drill, needing the QSL cards to get the awards.

With the redesign of the web site, I don't know where that list of countries Bill has worked went. Wherever it is, add one more to the count.

I hope this is just a blip. Tried to log into the [b]Space Station Audio[/b] today (12.46 UTC) and the Real Player message comes up stating that the "Requested File Is Not Found...The Link May Be Outdated" The Nasa TV still seems to be ok. I really enjoy listening to the Space to Ground and vice verca communications. To lose this would be devastating so let's hope this is not permanent. [url]http://www.chron.com/content/interactive/space/vdo/[/url] PS. I like the new look to the ISS website but where have all the little Smileys gone? Smileys add a little fun and colour to posts!

From the SAREX reflector:
All,

SuitSat-1/Radioskaf/AO-54---the mission that has captured the imagination of people and students around the world---is now a confirmed silent key. The outreach, press requests and visibility of SuitSat was absolutely amazing and appears to be unprecedented for a ham radio event. While the press requests are just now starting to wane, we expect that you will continue to see SuitSat status reports and pictures in magazines, websites and other literature over the next few months. One metric which shows the interest---we had over 9 MILLION hits at the www.suitsat.org web site. Quite impressive indeed!!
Based on the reports we have received, the last confirmed reception of the SuitSat voice audio was on Saturday February 18 at 3:32 UTC by Bob King's station, VE6BLD in Canada. The last confirmed telemetry was received by Richard Crow's station, N2SPI in the USA. Richard copied the SuitSat-1 voltage dropping precipitously to a low of 18.3 volts before vehicle stopped transmitting. I have included Richard's compiled telemetry do*****ent at the end of this e-mail.