Press release by Peter Kofler, IN3GHZ, ARISS mentor:
Friday 19 November 2004 at 14:34 UTC, i.e. 15:34 local time, the school center "Direzione Didattica Statale 1° Circolo� in Polignano a Mare near the city of Bari in south-east Italy performed a radio contact with US astronaut Leroy Chiao, KE5BRW, on board the International Space Station.

i found this doc earlier so they have bewem doing vioce contacts with schools not just packet LOL

Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf

Has anybody experienced DX on the ISS? I noticed this first a couple years ago when a couple of times we contacted the digipeater when it was below the horizon, according to Instant Tracker. This morning I hit it again at 1230Z when it was 3100kms SW of our QTH and -7° below the horizon. That's amazing! On a student-built single-element quad-loop antenna!

DE VYØDU ...Orin

A second ARISS School Contact has been scheduled for Yuri Shargin during his short stay onboard. Friday October 22nd 2004 around 0838 UTC, pupils of the primary school "Zonnebloem" (Turnsole) visiting the Science Exhibition in Hasselt, Belgium will have the opportunity to put their questions to the Cosmonaut:

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.

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.

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.

Various reports from all over the world confirm that many operators are successfully using the FM repeater recently activated onboard ISS.

The ARISS program is pleased to announce that the amateur radio equipment aboard the International Space Station is now operating in cross-band repeat mode. We realize that many of you will miss the packet-operating mode. However, cross-band repeat allows further experimentation of the ISS amateur radio system