Successful ARISS contact with Technical School Zagreb

[IK0ZCW]

Written by ON4WF
Saturday, 29 June 2013 14:40

The June 26 ARISS contact with Ruder Boscovic school in Zagreb was a success. Students asked 23 questions and astronaut Luca Parmitano answered them. Conversation lasted 9 minutes and 50 seconds.

Equipment included a Kenwood TS-2000 TCVR with preamplifier, linear amplifier with output power of 400W and 2x7el Yagi type DK7ZB antennas verticaly polarized. Tracking and Doppler software was Orbitron.

Attendance about 70, including :

- Minister of Science, Education and Sports with 2 advisers

- Croatian Post and Electronic Telecommunication Agency (HAKOM) CEO

- Croatian Telecom CEO

- Deputy Director of Zagreb City Education, culture and sports Department

- Members of Croatian amateur radio society(HRS) Board

- 20 school professors

- More then 20 journalist

- Members of Radio clubs from Zagreb, Samobor and Pazin

- School students

- ARISS coordinator Marko Pernic, 9A8MM

ARISS programme in school started at 7 PM with a short presentation of Technical school Ruder Boskovic and detailed information concerning the ARISS project :

- Description of ARISS project

- Preparation work (amateur radio course for Novice class)

- Mission #36 and today’s ISS Crew

- CV of astronaut Luca Parmitano

Three screens displayed :

- Orbitron tracking software

- School and ARISS presentations and power point with students pictures and their names

- interlaced with pictures of Luca Parmitano

- Video from the broadcast cameras in the room

After the radio contact, comments were enthousiastic, congratulating students, school teachers and the 9A1A team, which realized the project. The Minister of Science, Education and Sports spent nearly an hour in conversation with school teachers and the amateur radio team.

The whole programme, including contact with astronaut Luca Parmitano, was broadcast on web by CARNet (Croatian Academic Research Network) which has 100 MB/sec optical fibre link with school. Many links on various web sites (including HRS and School) allowed downloading from CARNet.

On Wednesday the event was announced in all main newspapers, all 3 TV Stations which have state level concession (HRT – Hrvatska radiotelevizija, RTL Televizija and Nova TV) and radio stations covering state level and Zagreb area. HRT, on their channel HTV1, did a 10 minutes live reportage from the school around 5:50 PM. They had interviews with 2 students Jura and Ilija, school Principal Mrs Fustar, Coordinating teacher Mr Juric and Marko Pernic, 9A8MM as students mentor.

News on channel HTV4 covered the event at 4 PM, with an interview of students Marija and Martin and school Principal Mrs Fustar. Nova TV also interviewed Marija, Martin and Mrs Fustar and included the interview in their News at 5 PM. HRT on programme HTV1 and Nova TV had several minutes “live” transmission of students conversation with astronaut Luca Parmitano in their main Headline News.

Also HTV1, RTL Televizija and Nova TV covered the event in their evening Headline news, transmitted around 11 PM. Croatian Radio and Radio Sljeme commented the event in their evening news. Mrs Fustar was interviewed by Antena radio, a radio station covering the Zagreb area up 100 km distance where 30% of the Croatian population lives and also by Otvoreni radio which covers all Croatia.

June 27, 2013 more than 20 websites published articles about the ARISS event. On June 28, from 10:40 to 11:30, Mrs Fustar and Marko Pernic, 9A8MM were live on Croatian radio Programme 2, with national coverage, commenting the ARISS event.

Congratulations to the 9A1A team for a job well done in the field of promotion of the amateur radio service to the general public and especially to the youth.

This article is based on the report produced by Nikola Percin, 9A5W. Pictures and an MP3 recording are attached to the file archived at http://www.ariss-eu.org/archive.htm