An STS-120 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at IIS Deambrosis-Natta Sestri Levante, Italy and the Faculty of Engineering, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy on 29 Oct. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 08:23 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between station IZØJPA (Nespoli) and ground stations IK1XHI and IZ6BAJ. The contact should be audible in most of Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in Italian. Live audio from this contact can be heard on the EchoLink AMSAT (101 377) and JK1ZRW (277 208) Conference Rooms, and on the IRLP Discovery Reflector 9010. For further information, please check the calendar of events on www.amsat.org.

In response to the following comment in the Amateur Radio packet status section, "Somebody forgot to turn off the 'Ham Radio' during the Shuttle docking this morning ;-). No uplink but RS0ISS was beaconing packet... "

The ham radio is only required to be powered down for Russian Vehicle proximity operations (Soyuz and Progress Docking, Undocking and Relocations) and space walks. It is [u]not[/u] required for Shuttle, ATV or HTV docking or undocking.

That being said, expect the radios are to be powered off to support the 5 EVA events planned for this shuttle mission (STS-120). Hopefully that will resolve the beacon only state the radio is in.