Pupils at Robinson Elementary School in Anderson, Indiana, and at Teven-Tintenbar Public School in New South Wales, Australia, learned more about life in space when they spoke via ham radio earlier this month with ISS crew member Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ. The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program arranged both direct VHF contacts. During the August 2 QSO between W9VCF at Robinson Elementary and NA1SS in space, one youngster offered a new twist on the typical "food question." He wanted to know how the space station crew was able to eat without the meal floating away.

NASA will begin the launch countdown for Space Shuttle Atlantis' STS-115 mission at 6 p.m. EDT Thursday, Aug. 24, at the T-43 hour point. During this mission, Atlantis' crew will resume construction of the International Space Station, which is the goal of the remaining space shuttle flights until the spacecraft are retired in 2010.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/msg08190.html

Anybody copy the ISS signal directly during the 1038 UTC pass over California on Aug 18? Reports on signal quality would be greatly appreciated.

Kenneth - N5VHO

HI TO ALL ISS FANS:
DURING THE TIME BILL MCARTHUR ARE ACTIVE FROM ISS,THE SATELITE AMATEUR OPERATIONS EXPERIMENT A BIG BOOM.IN FACT,WHEN THE HISTORY OF AMATEUR RADIO WAS RE-WRITED,THE NAME OF BILL MUST BE WRITED IN GOLD LETTERS. BUT, IN MY OPINION, A COMPLETE CONTACT WITH THE ISS, MEANS A CONTACT WITH BOTH VERSIONS OF THE ISS(NA1SS,RI0ISS).REMEMBER, BILL'S CREWMATE,MR TOKAREV, ISN'T A LICENCED HAM.
A LOT OF ISS ENTHUSIASTS IN PUERTO RICO,AND, I THINK,IN THE REST OF THE OCCIDENTAL HEMISPHERE ARE HOPPING MAKE CONTACT SOME DAY WITH THE RUSSIAN VERSION .
WE KNOW WHAT COMMANDER VINOGRADOV ARE MAKING EXPERIMENTS IN SSTV,AND MR WILLIAMS ARE VERY BUSY IN THE EXPERIMENTS SCHEDULED AND IN THE RE-ASEMBLING STUFF OF THE STATION.