September 18: Frank Bauer gave an ARISS presentation at the 41st ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) in Charlotte, NC. He covered some ARISS background and 2022 activity, including several education programs, and focused heavily on ARISS’s STEREO education program—Student and Teacher Education via Radio Experimentation & Operations. He described progress made on STEREO; it is ramping up thanks to a five-year grant funded by Amateur Radio Digital Communications. Frank related some of STEREO’s main features, such as an ARISS electronics technology kit called SPARKI (Space-Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative) and plans for educate-the-educator events. In addition to Frank’s in-person audience of 60, DCC offered all presentations on YouTube and 300 viewers tuned in. Other conference talks during the three days covered digital signal processing, emergency and homeland defense digital communications in amateur radio, digital satellite communications, and more.
September 26: Students at Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk, Russia took part in an ARISS contact supported by Sergey Prokopyev. The ARISS-Russia team will provide more details soon.
September 16-October 2: Members of Hampden County Radio Association of W. Springfield, MA and constituents of the ARRL New England Division planned an exhibit showcasing ham radio and ARISS for the entire 17 days of The BIG E (New England’s state fair). ARISS team members are helping staff the exhibit booth. The first day, they discussed ARISS and ham radio with over 100 people who stopped to ask questions; volunteers expect 100 people to visit every day. One staffer said, “We attract attention by strategically planning activities that get noticed, like the looping video, the graphic ‘waterfall’ display (representation of signals) on our radio, the sound of the Morse code key that youth are experimenting with, and our friendly faces!” The BIG E is the 6th largest fair in the US and its arena that holds 5,000 people is the location of an ARISS radio contact on September 27 for students from the New England Sci-Tech learning center in Natick, MA.
ARISS Upcoming Events
Sep 27 New England SciTech students at The Big E–exposition in W. Springfield MA, ARISS contact, ARISS-US team
Oct 1 Aznakaevo youth, Aznakaevo, Rep of Tatarstan, Russia ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia team