Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will get a special musical wakeup call this weekend as Paul McCartney connects with them live from a concert in Anaheim, Calif. The call will take place at 11:55 p.m. CST Saturday and will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

The McCartney wakeup music for McArthur and Tokarev is a follow-up to a tribute he paid to the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-114 mission in August, when the Beatles' classic "Good Day Sunshine" was played as a wakeup call for Discovery's crew on the day weather conditions became favorable for landing.

goto this website for original article http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18652

An unmanned Russian spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS) fired its engines early Thursday, raising the research platform's orbit in preparation for a cargo shipment next month.

http://space.com/missionlaunches/051110_exp12_issreboost.html

Here's the video of the ISS QSO we had yesterday:
http://www.howardlong.com/images/Furtherwick.wmv (40Mb)

...where we got the breaking news of the McCartney "gig in space" before
anyone else!

73, Howard G6LVB

http://www.g6lvb.com/images/furtherwickcut16kbps11khz.mp3 1.2Mb

http://www.g6lvb.com/images/furtherwickcut32kbps24khz.mp3 2.4Mb

73, Howard G6LVB

Astronaut Nicole Stott took and passed her amateur radio exam on Friday, October 28, and was issued the callsign, KE5GJN. Stott is currently in the future ISS crew selection pool. The last 6 unlicensed astronaut candidates from the class of 2004 are tentatively scheduled for an amateur radio license training session on November 10.

http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm

Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William "Shep" Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to inhabit the ISS on a long term basis. Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, who commands Expedition 12, the current ISS crew increment, took note of the occasion when he spoke with reporters this week.

"We've done things that were just inconceivable 50 years ago," McArthur said." I think that we have demonstrated that human beings can live and work in space, and, given the will, we can return to the moon not just to visit but to stay there permanently and in not-too-distant future, send people to Mars."

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

Thanks to Alain IZ6BYY we have the transcription of the answers from Bill McArthur in English and in Italian too.
Also you can find in this post the link to the audio file in MP3 format.
Click on "Read More" to read the complete text.

73's Claudio IK1SLD

On Wednesday 9 November 2005 at 17:47hrs, Students from Furtherwick Park School Canvey Island, Essex were able to chat with astronauts orbiting the earth abound the International Space Station, thanks to South Essex Amateur Radio Society and Carlos Eavis of the R.S.G.B and Howard Long of ARISS/ Amsat uk . The pupils used amateur radio equipment to ask the astronauts questions as they passed 250 miles above the earth travelling at 17500mph,

This morning Claudio IK1SLD and I operated a school contact from the Italian School "Istituto Comprensivo F.Negri" here in Casale Monferato, in North-West Italy.
It was a great experience that culminated in a stunning success!
The event has been carefully organized for years by the local Amateur Radio Club (Ari Casale Monferrato) that provided superb organization and support.

Now is the time to begin preparing your amateur radio station to receive signals from SuitSat, the most unusual Amateur Radio satellite ever orbited. SuitSat amateur radio equipment will be installed inside a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit. It will become an independently orbiting satellite once it is deployed by the crew of the International Space Station during an extravehicular activity, tentatively planned around December 8, 2005.

http://www.amsat.org