Hello to all ISS Fan Club Members,

Just to report that Bill Mc Arthur had a qso on 2 meter with this famous DX Expedition on Peter 1 Island 3Y0X.
This is the DXCC number 104 for Bill.
Bill McArthur used the lower-power Phase 1 Ericsson 2-meter gear for the contact. He reported good copy on 3Y0X, which was using its moonbounce equipment and array for the event.
More info on www.peterone.com or http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/02/14/4/?nc=1?

After 18 months of intense training, NASA's latest astronaut candidates now are officially astronauts, and several already are Amateur Radio licensees. The class of 11, including three educator astronauts selected from teachers across the nation, received NASA Astronaut pins in a graduation ceremony February 10. The new astronauts' immediate duties include support roles in the space shuttle and space station programs.

http://www.arrl.org/

From ARRL:
ISS commander continues to set on-the-air records (Feb 10, 2006) -- International Space Station Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, has topped 100 entities in his effort to complete DXCC from space. "Bill was able to work a few more stations prior to and just after the space walk that deployed SuitSat-1 and now has exceeded the 100 mark," says Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Ham Radio Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO.

Joca (PS7JN ) just posted this beautiful article about his scheduled contact with the International Space Station while living on Saint Peter and Saint Paul Islans, about 1000 km offshore the Brazil coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
Full of pictures, this is one of the most exciting contacts I have heard about!

Read Joca's report
try this other link if Joca's page is blocked due to traffic overload

Its not yet confirmed by N5VHO's log inspection, but Bill McArthur might have recently worked his 100th DXCC entity during the QSO with Jim VQ9JC.

Since the orbit number 41266 we have listened the cross band repeater of the ISS (145,990 in / 437,800 out) but without receiving signals from Suitsat

From the www.aj3u.com/blog/ web site.
Recorded Feb 8 2006 1349UTC
Great Job Richard!! - A.J.
Yippee! I just captured the telemetry for SuitSat-1 at 13:49:41 UTC on 8 Feb 2006 right here in Smithville Flats, NY, USA. I pretty much got all of it. My audio file is for 8 February 2006 and starts at 13:49:30 UTC (+/- 1 second) as determined by my "atomic" clock. (The "atomic" clock synchronizes itself to WWVB daily.)

4th Feb 2006, astronaut McArthur about Suisat:

Well you know where there is a will there is a way, so maybe folks we will
try again we've got more suits that need to be jettison, actualy it was
pretty well setup and it wasn't that difficult for us to execute.

Thats what we've heard as soon as we came in the
hatch yesterday a few minutes later I turned on the radio we should have
been pretty close and didn't hear anything!
You know my source was the houston chronical newspaper, this morning and thats
what I've read, although its the same battery we use in our space suits so I would think
they would handle the temperature but its hard to say ofcourse or bodies
produceing heat and so maybe that keeps the batteries warm but the batteries
are actualy are in an external compartiment on the space suit.

OM from Japan reported very week signal received during the 00:09 UTC pass. I am waiting for the 02:53 UTC pass over Italy to send my report.

73 Claudio IK1SLD

According to various sources, Suitsat has just been launched.
Tune your radios to 145.990 and get ready to receive Robot-36 SSTV!