Received from Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, ARISS Europe chairman:
Tuesday October 19th 2004, high school students of Pori, Finland talked with Cosmonaut Yuri Shargin onboard the International Space Station.

The radio contact was established at 07:13 GMT when the ISS rose over the horizon in Pori. The Cosmonaut had already been calling the ground station OH1F in Pori a minute before and had been heard calling in western Europe.

Dear friends,
issfanclub.com wants to thank the incredible work done by the Expedition 9.
To do so we set up a special public gallery where you can upload your pictures and comments for the crew.

Thursday October 14th 2004, a Soyuz vehicule left Baïkonour for the Internation Space Station. Onboard is ISS expedition crew 10: astronaut Leroy Chiao and cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov. The third seat will be occupied by visiting crew member Yuri Shargin.

We have an agreement with Energia, the Russian Space Agency, for two ARISS School Contacts to be performed by Yuri Shargin during his short stay onboard.

Yesterday I spoke with Sergei Krikalev. He was in Moscow but during this weekend he will fly to Houston again.
Sergei greets all the members of the ISS FanClub but unfortunately, due to the overload work, he hasn't possibility to come here to write directly a message.

Dear friends,

as promised we are about to donate to Amsat NA the funds collected with our Iss Achievement Award.

Kenneth Ransom reports that the ISS is currently in crossband repeat mode. Enjoy!
The following information may be helpful in using this mode. It's supplied by Charlie Sufana, AJ9N:

The next contact between school students and the crew aboard the International Space Station will take place Thursday, 23 September 2004. Students at Investigator Science and Technology Centre, Adelaide, Australia will speak directly to astronaut Mike Fincke via amateur radio beginning about 0913 UTC.

Mike Finkce will be active on Oct 17 talking first to a school in Japan and then again on Oct 18 when he will be talking to the European Space Operations Centre(ESOC) in Darmstadt.

More details in the "read more" section.

Here is a photo of hurrican Ivan taken from the ISS.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040915.html

On Saturday, Sept. 11, Mike Fincke (KE5AIT) became the first crewmember of the International Space Station to talk to all 7 continents using amateur radio when he talked with Palmer Research Station (KC4AAC).