SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS024
ARLS024 Hams Contact Atlantis/Mir Astronauts

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Space Bulletin 024  ARLS024
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington, CT  November 17, 1995
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS024
ARLS024 Hams Contact Atlantis/Mir Astronauts

ARRL has received dozens of reports from amateurs that have made
successful voice contacts with the crew aboard the Space Shuttle
Atlantis and the Mir Space Station Complex. The two spacecraft have
been docked together since Wednesday, and are orbiting 245 miles
above the earth at approximately 17,000 mph.

Earlier this week, the Atlantis astronauts completed 5 scheduled ham
radio contacts with US students as part of the Shuttle Amateur Radio
EXperiment or SAREX. These groups included students from Franklin
Junior High School in Pocatello, Idaho, Norwalk County schools in
Connecticut, Lake Street Elementary School in Crown Point, Indiana,
Round Lake-area schools in Illinois, and Quimby Oak Junior High
School in San Jose, California. The students were assisted by their
local Amateur Radio clubs and many AMSAT SAREX volunteers.

Amateurs trying to make random contacts with the astronauts should
be aware the crew is using separate receive and transmit
frequencies. Do not transmit on the shuttle's downlink frequency.
The downlink is your receiving frequency. The uplink is your
transmitting frequency. The FM voice downlink is 145.84 MHz. The FM
voice uplinks are 144.45 and 144.47 MHz. The crew will not favor
either uplink frequency, so your ability to communicate with SAREX
will be the ''luck of the draw.'' Transmit only when the shuttle is
within range of your station, and when the astronauts are
on-the-air. The astronaut's call signs are KB5AWP, KC5NRI, N5SCW,
KC5ACR, and KC5RNJ. There is no hardware to support packet radio
contacts from the shuttle during this flight.

QSL cards and reports may be sent to ARRL EAD, STS-74 QSL, 225 Main
Street, Newington, CT 06111-1494, USA. Include the following
information in your QSL or report: STS-74, date, time in UTC,
frequency and mode (FM voice). In addition, you must also include a
SASE using a large, business-sized envelope (10) if you wish to
receive a card. The Greater Norwalk Amateur Radio Club in Norwalk,
CT has generously volunteered to manage the cards for this mission.

Thanks to SAREX Volunteer Gil Carman, WA5NOM, at NASA Johnson Space
Center for generating the following Keplerian element set, JSC-914:

Mir-Atl
1 16609U 86017A   95319.63436307  .00005442  00000-0  65227-4 0  9141
2 16609  51.6445 119.1436 0002776 342.3991  17.7067 15.58119804556564

Satellite: Mir-Atl
Catalog number: 16609
Epoch time:      95319.63436307   =     yrday.fracday
Element set:     914
Inclination:       51.6445 deg
RA of node:       119.1436 deg
Eccentricity:     .0002776
Arg of perigee:   342.3991 deg
Mean anomaly:      17.7067 deg
Mean motion:   15.58119804 rev/day
Decay rate:    5.44200E-05 rev/day sq
Epoch rev:           55656
Checksum:              319

Note: This element set is valid for the Atlantis/Mir docked
configuration until undocking on Nov 18 at 0815 UTC. The shuttle
landing is scheduled at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida for
November 20, 1995 at 1734 UTC.
NNNN
/EX