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Ignition sequence start. Six. Five. Four. Three.
Two. One. Zero. All engine running. Liftoff.
We have a liftoff. Thirty -two minutes past the
hour. Liftoff on Apollo 11. Tower cleared. Okay,
engine stop. Houston, Tranquillity base here.
The Eagle has landed. Roger, Tranquillity. We
copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys
about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks
a lot. Well, good evening everyone. Yes, the
Eagle has landed. It's at Amtok Live, episode
number 124. The NASA On The Air update recorded
live on Thursday, July 19th, 2018. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this
episode of Amtok Live. Tonight we're joined by
Dr. Rob Suggs, KB5EZ, Mike Logan, KM4WUO. Tanner
Jones, W9TWJ and Ken ran some N5VHO and they
are all with different aspects of NASA and they'll
be talking about NASA on the air tonight and
we'll take your calls live in the next segment.
We'll give you a chance to call in and ask any
questions that you have and any comments that
you have tonight and hope you heard us last week.
We were on a little different time. It was 8
a .m. when we did last week's show and that was
because we were live from Germany at WRTC 2018.
Ed Durant, DD5LP, was there to bring some of
the staff and the competitors to us and if you
missed that you can listen to HamTalkLive .com
or on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube
and you can find us there. So, congratulations
to the Lithuanian team who walked away with the
championship. for 2018. So get your NASA on -the
-air questions ready to go after we talk to these
guys for a little bit. You can give us a call,
and let me go ahead and give you the number.
It's not time to call yet, but we'll give you
the number. It's 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812
-638 -4261. Or you can Skype us on the username
hamtalklive, and you can call in there as well.
or you can tweet us. Our Twitter handle is at
HamTalk Live and I'll be back with the NASA crew
right after this word from ICOM America right
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Live. And don't forget all summer long we'll
have a winner of our Call of the Night contest.
All you have to do is call into the show during
the proper time. We'll pick a random caller as
the winner of the show. Tonight's winner will
receive an autographed copy of the Bob Heil Ham
Radio Handbook. second edition from Hile Sound.
So if you call in tonight, you may have a chance
to win. So give us a call when it's time. But
first, let me introduce you to our NASA folks
here. Leading off is Dr. Rob Suggs, KB5EZ. He
works at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
in Alabama as a space environments team lead.
He's responsible for the compatibility of NASA
flight projects with meteoroid and orbital debris,
ionizing radiation, neutral thermosphere and
ionosphere plasma environments. Mike Logan, KM4WUO
is the head of NASA Langley Small Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle Laboratory. or the Suave Lab, which designs,
develops, builds, and tests small unmanned craft
and provides expertise to national level organizations
on designs, operations, and airspace integration.
Our third guest is Tanner Jones, W9TWJ. He's
an electrical reliability engineer with Marathon
Petroleum Company, near Houston, Texas. And he's
the webmaster and QSL manager for the Johnson
Space Center Amateur Radio Club. And I've known
him since he was a kid. He was up the road here
from where I'm at tonight. He was... from the
Robinson, Illinois area just down the road from
Vincennes, Indiana, which is where we're actually
bringing you the show tonight. I had to be down
here for a few days. And so we're just doing
this by remote tonight. So new place to host
the show. But Tanner, I've known for a very long
time. We were both in the same club here, the
old post -damage radio society for a little while.
and he was the webmaster for that club for quite
some time after I moved away. And our last guest
tonight is Ken Ransom, N5VHO, and he is... the
project coordinator for the amateur radio on
the International Space Station project and that's
through Barrios Technologies and Ken trains astronauts
on using amateur radio and demonstrates ham radio
to schools off and along with astronauts. So
he's the man when it comes to heiress. So guys,
thanks for coming on the show tonight to update
us on NASA on the air. Glad to be here. Thanks
for having us, Neil. All right, well, we've got
a few months in here on NASA On The Air. And
so, Rob, tell us how things are going so far
and the contact tracking system, or as we do
in science, we have those TLAs, those three -letter
acronyms, so it's the CTS. and some of the upcoming
events that are going to be going on in the second
half. All right. Well, Neil, thanks again for
having us on. For a second time, you got us off
to a great start back in December when we kicked
this off with the Apollo 17 event. And we have
some really great events coming up here through
the second half of this. As far as how we've
been doing, well, we've been making some contacts.
We have Over 16 ,000 contacts in the logs now
with over 10 ,000 unique call signs. This contact
tracking system or CTS you talk about is was
created by Matt McDougal. He's one of our members
as K a zero S very nice piece of software where
all of the clubs upload their logs and it gives
all your hands out there way to see how you're
doing as you're chasing our various clubs on
different bands and modes is kind of a. club
log style of user interface there. We upload
our logs, you just type in a call sign to check
your contacts. We've been mostly active on HF,
but there have been quite a few satellite contacts
and even a few meteor scatter QSOs. Most contacts
have been on phone, on sideband, but many have
been CW. There's been some PSK 31, quite a few
FT8 contacts as well. I've been really enjoying
that mode. and several of the clubs are doing
that. QSL instructions, if you want a paper QSL,
can be found at the various club callsign qrz
.com pages. And most of us are uploading to Logbook
of the World and some to eQSL as well. So there
are various ways to get confirmation of the contact,
but the contact tracking system is a primary
way to see how you're doing. Upcoming events
now, our really big ones are coming up, our NASA
60th anniversary is at the end of July, and a
number of the clubs will be on the air for that.
Then the end of November, we have the ISS 20th
anniversary. We're planning a coordinated event
right now with the European Space Agency. We
had one of our colleagues over there contact
us. We've also been looking for some... contacts
at the other space agencies that are involved
with ISS, the Canadian, Japanese and Russian
space agencies. We haven't found the right club
folks there yet to see if they'd like to do something
coordinated, but stay tuned, check our nasaontheair
.wordpress .com site for further information
as that develops. And let's see that to end all
of this. The year long event is the Apollo 8
50th anniversary. That's the end of December
and that'll wrap it up. The event at that time
you'll be able to go on and download and print
a certificate that gives your score and it's
kind of a nice commemorative thing. In addition
to the special events that we've celebrated along
the way, such as the 45th anniversary of Apollo
17 back in December, and the 45th of Skylab back
in May, I believe it was, and the 35th anniversary
of Sally Ride's first flight, she was the first
American woman in space, we've been making casual
contacts and working contests. All of those contacts
count for credit. My favorites are the casual
contacts. We sometimes get to chat with hams.
So many of them will share fond memories they
have of the events that we're commemorating.
And some of them are actually involved. A really
cool one was I've worked a guy, I think a couple
of times now, who was actually on the carrier,
the USS Hornet, that recovered the Apollo 11
crew. And that was quite cool. Even though most
of these events that we try to work are evenly
divisible by five anniversaries, the Apollo 11
49th anniversary is going on right now. 49 years
ago tomorrow is when Apollo 11 landed on the
moon. So a number of the clubs will be on the
air this weekend and some right through the week
leading up to the 60th birthday of NASA the following
weekend. So we generally announce our operating
frequencies on Twitter and Facebook, and I know
that Neil has sent those out. Those links are
also on our nota .ka0s .net and our WordPress
site as well. We're usually spotted on the DX
clusters as well. So that's kind of what's going
on, Neil, and we've got a lot coming and hope
to get a lot more contacts in the log through
the rest of the year. So 49 years ago tomorrow,
we heard this. And I kind of like if you listen
really really close to that clip you can hear
some some sideband stuff in the background It's
pretty cool. And so that's tomorrow. So so we've
got quite a bit of stuff Going on here and We've
got a Neil and we've got a mic Now, I'm not sure
where Buzz fits into this, but we do have a Mike,
and Mike is up at Langley Research Center, and
a lot of times we kind of forget about the other
A in NASA, and that's aeronautics. So Mike, tell
us some of the aeronautics stuff going on up
there at Langley. I'd be glad to. Thanks for
having us on. Yeah, it's interesting. Today,
let's see. I guess it was two days ago last year
July 17th of 1917 the Langley Memorial aeronautical
laboratory was stood up and so the Langley Celebrated
their hundredth birthday last year so we've been
around a while lots of interesting firsts I Come
from an airplane design background one of the
first things that the Langley Memorial Aeronautical
Laboratory did was do wind tunnel tests of airfoils
and the data that was generated back then is
still used today for a lot of things. So we've
been doing stuff for a long time. A lot of the
X -planes that people remember were done via
NASA's aeronautics program. These days we're
continuing that tradition. We've got one new
X plane called the X -57, which is an all -electric
distributed propulsion aircraft that we're going
to be flying. And we just started on what's called
a low -sonic boom demonstrator, excuse me, that
we're going to be looking at to push some boundaries
of technologies like we have been doing. For
those that are trying to chase down the various
aeronautics related centers, the call signs for
that, I had to write them down because otherwise
I wouldn't remember them. NA6MF is our NASA Ames
Research Facility out in California, and NA6SA
is our Armstrong Flight Research Center where
we do a lot of the flying of X -planes and that
sort of thing. NA8SA is our NASA Glenn facility.
Their concentration is propulsion and power and
communications. And then the Langley Club sign
is KG4NJA. So if you want to chase down some
of the aeronautics centers, feel free to go after
those call signs. We'll probably have a number
of specific dates for various first flights of
this vehicle or that vehicle. Sometimes we'll
pick a date where there was a record set like
the Helios solar powered vehicle sent an all
time altitude record for propeller driven vehicles
and things like that. So we'll be doing several
things. And me personally, I'm involved in something
we call Safe by Design. We're trying to design
and build Small drones that, even if everything
goes completely south, it won't hurt anybody
if it falls out of the sky. That's kind of a
challenge, but I think we're up to it. Well,
I've seen some footage of some of the tests that
you guys put some of these crafts through and
it's amazing. I mean, it's extensive. I can't
believe some of the things you guys do to those
poor crafts. Well, yeah, that's true. At Langley
we have what used to be the Lunar Lander practice
gantry. It's where all the astronauts trained
to kind of maneuver the Lunar Lander to a specific
spot. Big tall gantry, it's a couple hundred
feet tall and probably 300 feet long. Well, okay,
so that now does a lot of crash testing where
we take fuselages and wings and things like that,
helicopters, and we deliberately smack them into
the ground with dummies on board to record their
forces and moments and things like that to help
build safer aircraft. So yeah, and I think a
lot of people probably remember the video footage
of the one airliner looking thing that you know
Came in landed on the desert bed and smacked
a wing and course burst into flames. I was out
at our Armstrong Flight Research Center So yeah,
we we we push the boundaries. We make sure that
these things are gonna work, right? Well, very
important job and we we thank you for working
on those things and drones that yeah, if something
goes bad doesn't Smack somebody on the head and
everything. Well, that would be good, too Well,
we're gonna move on down to Houston and Johnson
Space Center and Tanner Jones W9 TWJ is here
and and I can always give him a hard time because
because I've known him so long, but They've been
extremely active on the bands for NASA on the
air. And I know Tanner and I have made some contacts
at school and even field day with a little help
on 1 .8 gigahertz doing some spotting. But tell
us about what's going on down there in Houston,
Tanner. Okay, well, as Rob said, we started off
back in December celebrating the 45th anniversary
of Apollo 17 with a week -long celebration. We
had a great presence throughout the week of operators
coming in before work and during their lunch
break and then after work. And we also had a
steady stream of operations throughout the weekend.
And then it basically rolls to a list of a lot
of firsts down here for the JSC ARC. We started
off at the end of January by operating in the
club's first ever winter field day. So we had
a great exercise here as it was a quote unquote
true field day as our goal was not to use any
of our current infrastructure and we operated
outside. We didn't have as big of a RF footprint
with all the amplifiers and everything, and we
certainly didn't have typical Texas weather as
it was very cool and damp, but we certainly managed
and we had a great time doing it. And then we
also were able to capture some great lessons
learned from this event for ARRL Field Day, which
I'll talk about here in a second. And then believe
it or not, we actually took a month off. So in
the past, the shack has seen some water intrusion
during some heavy rain events. Back in August,
Hurricane Harvey dealt the final card and we
got a small amount of water in the shack, but
thankfully it was just enough to get the carpet
damp and be a little bit of an annoyance. Keith
Grim, who was our president, KG5HOK, decided
to replace the carpet with tile. So we had to
move all the equipment out of the shack and get
everything staged and that presented an opportunity
to get a nice fresh coat of paint on the wall.
We were actually QRT for most of the month of
February, but we did have to do something hand
-related. We just couldn't do all the administrative
stuff in the shack. Our vice president, Dave
Lee, W50C, led an effort to add a first to the
shack, which was a 160 -meter capability. So
Dave installed a parallel shunt -fed wire along
our outer rails of our 80 -foot tower. And that
pretty much led us right into testing and the
CQ Worldwide 160 Contest at the end of February,
which we had a lot of fun in as well. We had
a small presence in the ARRL DX Contest, but
Mr. Murphy happened to show up that weekend,
so certainly didn't go as planned, but we certainly
gave it a whirl. And then we've just kind of
continued with casual operating. This event has
allowed us to take part in one of Ames Radio's
staples of experimenting. We've been able to
introduce many members, including myself, to
the hottest mode, which is FT8. And then in conjunction
with our license classes that we offer, they're
being instructed by Dr. Bob Sully, N9RCS, and
Stu Donnan, W4STU, we've been able to introduce
newly licensed operators to the world of HF and
satellites. So that's been good too. And speaking
of satellites, we had a major goal for the club
this year. is an effort being led by Mike VanderWalde,
N8MTV, to get our station air is certified. So
Mike and John Maca, who's AB5SS, Jeff Harbor,
AB4ME, and Terry Moore, KG5, PJT, they've been
working very hard to optimize our satellite station
and get it ready for certification. So we've
been very active on the birds as well. As you
mentioned, we made a contact during ARL field
day. It was another first for us. So we operate
in conjunction with the Clear Lake Amateur Radio
Club, which is K5HOU. And we had our biggest
field day in the history of the club. We operated
12F. We had three little villages that were spaced
out. We had a CW, a digital, and a sideband.
And we captured this from lessons learned during
winter field day in the effort to reduce RFI.
And we just had a great time. We also operated
simultaneously in AMSTAT field day. And just
had a great turnout. We actually held operations
throughout the entire event, 24 hours, which
I wasn't able to do, but I certainly did it in
my younger days. But I wasn't able to do that.
So we're continuing. We're going to work other
contests throughout this year. And we also have
an EME event planned. We kind of talked about
that earlier in the year, so we're going to do
that. But our next big event is actually, as
Rob mentioned, will be starting next week, which
is the 60th anniversary of the Space Act being
signed. So we're basically planning another big
operation. We're going to duplicate basically
what we did during Apollo 17. We'll have operations
begin on the 23rd of July, and we'll run all
the way through the 29th. And Ken Goodwin, K5RG,
who you might remember, and is our resident yo
-yo player, he'll be operating a vintage station.
He'll have a 1958 vintage station consisting
of a an EF Johnson Viking Ranger 1, and he'll
have a Johnson Currier Amp and a Hammerland HQ
145C. So, Ken's plan to use a J38 straight key,
a Viroplex Bug for CW, and then we're also gonna
try to make some AM contacts, which should get
some attention, hopefully, so we're looking forward
to that. We'll have another special QSL card
up for grabs, and then all we ask is a self -addressed
stamped envelope. So we certainly hope to hear
you next week, and we just want to thank all
the stations as well who've certainly already
made this event so successful. So that's basically
what we've been up to in Houston, Neil. We have
lots going on down there at Johnson Space Center,
and we don't want to leave out Ken here. Things
kind of got turned around last time and when
and we didn't end up with Ken on the show so
I want to make sure we get him on tonight because
he's also down at Johnson Space Center, but he's
the man when it comes to Eris and We want to
talk a little bit about some of the things going
on there with the space station and he just made
a lot of contributions to Eris that are just
truly outstanding so Ken, tell us a little bit
about what's going on with Airis here. Okay,
Neil. Yeah, thank you very much. You know, a
lot of folks wonder what it is I do, and I tell
them I operate ham radio on the space station,
and either I get a, ooh, that's cool, or I get
a deer in the headlights look, and those are
usually the non -hams. Right now, on board, we
have six folks up there. Three of them are Americans.
One of them is German, and the other two are
Russian. And of those, Five of them are male,
and we have one female up there right now. So
there's a lot of activity going on board. I have
two of them licensed. No, actually three of them
licensed in the US. And then we have the Russians
who operate under a slightly different licensing
system. So the mix is constantly changing every
time we have different crews. I just happened
to notice a little while ago. that the space
station is in optimal viewing for folks this
week over North America. So if they want to wander
out and check out spotthestation .nasa .gov,
they can figure out when the space station is
going to be going by and whether or not they
can see it. But it looks like right now there's
going to be several opportunities to see the
space station fly over. And that's an incredible
sight if you've never had the opportunity. Normally
what I do is I tell folks to go out with their
ham radio and say, hey, you can listen to the
space station as it goes overhead. Unfortunately,
the packet module system that we normally have
operating in beacon mode and relaying signals
decided to belly up on us. So we're currently
in the process of manifesting a replacement unit
to go up on the space station. We hope to get
that back up and running probably in the October
time frame when the next vehicle has some room
on it to take it up. And then we're also working
on revitalizing a lot of the equipment on board
because most of it has been up there for over
a decade. And the new system that's coming online
is going to allow us to kind of spread our wings
a little bit and offer a lot more than we have
been able to in the past. Occasionally we would
have voice crossband repeat capabilities. That
probably will become a little bit more of a mainstay.
We'll reestablish the packet system opportunities.
We've already seen some SSTV activity from the
Russian side, and they like playing around with
that. So look forward to seeing that in the future
again. And all of these activities, including
the school events, that that's mainly where my
focus is, hooking up school kids, talking to
astronauts as the space station is passing over
the ground site, and allowing them to ask their
questions and get answers from the astronaut
in real time. via ham radio is the biggest focus
of what ARIS does. So all those activities are
keeping us really busy and hopefully by the middle
of next year you're going to see a lot more activity
on board from the space station. In the meantime,
enjoy what we can get down to folks on the ground
and if you want more information about the program,
check out... www .ariss .org and that's all I've
got. Alright Ken well thanks for all that good
information and Scott Ellis is online here and
says any update on when the radios will be fixed
so we got we got that one answered before before
we even got to it so thanks for for doing that
and I will throw in also that you know getting
these radio upgrades We've talked about them
on the show before. I've talked about them on
Newsline before. And they're still collecting
donations to get all that stuff updated and get
the radio and the new power supply up there for
the school contacts. And then now some of the
packet stuff. And so go to amsat .org, click
on the Donate to Eris button and help out on
that. OK, well, we're running behind time, which
I kind of expect. expected, so let's take a break
and when we come back we'll take calls and tweets
and see what you all have to ask about NASA on
the air right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Hey honey, have you
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air every Thursday night 9 p .m. Eastern Time
right here at hamtalklive .com Check us out on
Facebook Twitter and Instagram and we did post
some links for the NASA on -the -air stuff, and
also some data that we may talk about here in
a little bit, but some of the front runners and
how many contacts have been made here. And we'll
send it back to Rob here in just a minute, and
then we'll talk a little bit about those ARIS
contacts. But we do have a call on the line,
so we want to get the call in here. And we have
Brian, KG5KGT. Good evening, Brian. Hey, Neil,
thanks for taking my call. Enjoying the NASA
on the Air event so far. And in 2014, NASA astronaut
Reed Wiseman, KF -5, LKT, worked field day from
the ISS. I think it would be awesome if they
could get an astronaut from the ISS on the Air.
So my question is, are there any plans to try
and get a licensed astronaut on the ISS on the
Air for the NASA on the Air event? I'd say that's
a Ken question. Ken? Yep, that's sounds like
that was in my ballpark and I have asked every
crew member that goes up that is licensed if
they want to try to take the time to do that
and a lot of them say well I'll have to see when
I get up there and then that's usually the last
I hear of them because they've got their head
buried in science experiments and research but
you know I've been surprised before So I won't
say that it's not going to happen, but the chances
of it, it's kind of like rarity X. You never
know when it's going to happen. So be on the
lookout. Listen to the downlink 14580. And if
you happen to hear a crew member calling CQ,
be ready to jump on it. All right. I appreciate
it. Like I said, just wondering if that was in
the works. And at least you're asking. That's
about all you can do. So thanks for taking my
question. And like I said, enjoy the event. All
right, thanks for calling in Brian. Appreciate
it. All right, 73. All right, 73. And that phone
number again is 812 Net Ham 1, 812 -638 -4261.
If you have a question or comment about NASA
on the air, be sure to give us a call here. We'd
like to hear from you this evening. Let me throw
it back over to Rob. I know Rob has got some
new information on how the ARIS contacts will
work for NASA on the air. So Rob, you want to
talk about that for a minute? Yeah, you bet.
Yeah, I appreciated Brian's question about that
because a lot of folks, you know, when we first
started this, we thought we would like ISS to
be a part of this as well. But as Ken said, you
know, they've got some equipment issues. So what
we've done is set up a place in the contact tracking
system where if you receive An heiress downlink
if you hear a school contact going on or if you
receive one of these slow scan images That come
down from the Russian segment and we're working
on trying to get some more of those Associated
with with this event later in the year, but that's
still in the planning stages if you hear one
of these things you can Go into the contact tracking
system. There's a place there where you can check
a box and you say, hey, I received a slow scan
image, such and such date. And that will give
you credit for that contact. So it's sort of
SWL credit. It's purely honor system. We're not
checking any evidence of the contact. We don't
have any logs, of course, to do that. But that
will show up as an endorsement on your certificate
at the end of the year. So that's how we're handling
that for now. All right, very good and we do
have another call on the line so who's uh, who's
with us here now? This is Alan for EII and I
had a question I was recently down at Cape Canaveral
and took a couple of tours and on the bus tour
I'm pretty sure we went by the Radio Shack for
the club down there and I was just wondering
if there's any chance of Any tours or getting
together with any of the folks if I'm back down
there? Well, that's a Kevin question Kevin's
not here and I got to admit that I'm trying to
do the same thing next week Rob do you have any
any insight on that? Yeah, I don't know exactly
how that would work, but I would say, at the
risk of getting fussed at here by Kevin, try
to email KK4YankeeEchoLima. That's Kevin Zeri.
He's one of the prime guys down there. If you
go to his QRZ page and email him, he'll tell
you what the possibilities are for that. It's
a little bit difficult getting on the NASA centers
now with all the additional security, but I'd
say just contact Kevin and see what you can do
there. Okay. Thank you very much. And hey, that
was an exciting trip seeing Blue Origin's new
building and everything that's going on down
there. Space program is on fire, I'd say, right
now. Yeah, it's good. It's good to see a lot
of that stuff Alan Appreciate you calling in
tonight, and I hope you enjoyed your your trip
down there and like I said I'm I'm I'm in there
with you. I'm trying to do the same thing here
in a few days Hopefully, so we'll see how it
goes and talk to Kevin Okay, good luck Neil.
Thank you for everything All right, thank you
eight one two six three eight four two six one
is the telephone number eight one two net ham
one if you have a Question or a comment. We've
got a few minutes left here. Do you want to mention
some of the Tweets that have come in Katie nine
HQT says my mouth is drooling with all the events
coming up and there are a bunch and we got Scott's
question about getting things fixed I know Jeff,
W -E -4 -B, mentioned that his one N -O -T -A
contact was a satellite contact, which he operates
satellite a lot. So he's got the... looks like
he talked to Kevin down there at Kennedy. So
hopefully we'll get some more satellite contacts
going there too and maybe hear... Johnson Space
Center on down there. Okay, 812 Net Ham 1 812
-638 -4261 is the phone number. And I know Rob,
you've got a few other things that you want to
try to talk about people trying to to find you
and working through the pile ups and that kind
of thing. So let me let me give you a chance
to talk about that a little bit. All right, yeah,
it's it's been a great event as I said earlier
We it's been a lot of fun getting to chat with
folks, but occasionally we get pileups We love
pileups some of our operators are not as familiar
with those how to operate those But these are
such friendly pileups that it's been a great
experience for for them to kind of learn how
to handle that It's just just a real positive
all around and I didn't want to point out that
you know We're looking back at a lot of historical
events here. Keep in mind. We've got a really
exciting future coming In just a couple of years,
we'll be launching space station crews from U
.S. soil again, thanks to the Commercial Crew
Program. We'll start flying the Space Launch
System and the Orion spacecraft to send crews
beyond the Moon for the first time in 45 years.
We'll begin assembly of an outpost called Gateway
in orbit around the Moon, which would be a stepping
stone for lunar landings and potentially Mars
missions. So a lot of exciting things going on
in the future of the space program, too. And
we want to talk to you about that and share those
things with you, too, as we have time during
these contacts. 812 -638 -4261, if you're going
to call now is the time to do that. We're just
about out of time here tonight. But give us a
tweet, give us a call, or a Skype call if you
want. And we'll try to get your questions answered
here. And Rob, this has been a good event for
kind of what Tanner and some of the guys have
been talking about. kind of okay well let's let's
uh juice things up a little bit and uh let's
let's try a few new things let's clean up uh
and get active and and get um some of the station
upgrades done that uh it's kind of been a good
um excuse for getting all that stuff done oh
absolutely it has yeah several of the clubs have
commented that uh you know their stations really
weren't in operating condition And this has inspired
them to clean them up, maybe put up new antennas,
get the rigs tweaked up and get everything cleaned
out. And it's just gotten them back on the air
again. It's built a real sense of community among
the hams at the various NASA clubs. We've got
12 different clubs across the country here associated
with various NASA centers and facilities and
laboratories like the Jet Propulsion Lab. So
yeah, it's been great all around getting us all
going again. and as Tanner said, getting new
people on the air too and getting them exposed
to new modes like digital modes and working contests
and things like that. It's just been super for
us and I hope it's been fun for the folks that
we've talked to as well. All right, well we're
going to finish things up here but I want to
run around the horn here just once and any closing
comments or anything we forgot. So Mike, if you
haven't fallen asleep there, go right ahead.
No, I'm still here. I'm looking forward to doing
some more contacts. I actually spent some time
on PSK 31 and made quite a number of contacts
on that. I may switch over to voice in the not
too distant future, but I'm having a good time
with it. Tanner? So thanks, Neil, for having
us again. And again, we'll be semi -active this
weekend, but we'll be really ramping up on Monday.
So we certainly hope to hear you. So it's been
great so far, and we've had a lot of fun. All
right. I hope to get you again. And I appreciate
you taking the efforts to make sure that we get
those contacts in from up here. I appreciate
that, and I'm sure we'll be talking. And, Ken,
let's finish things up with you. Okay, well,
thank you very much, Neil. Just a quick reminder
that we are usually busy with at least one event
a week, and the next few weeks we actually have
a lot more. So if they'll visit the Aris .org
website, they can find out what events are occurring
in their part of the world, because we do work
worldwide. All right, very good and We're going
to finish things up here and dawn. Oh, I forgot
I forgot about dawn stats and I can't for some
reason I can't see his Comment here, but one
to mention that the stats have been tweeted out
and you can see those at the NASA on the Air
website, but you can see how many QSOS different
NASA facilities have worked and also the participants.
You can see the top 10 people who've contacted
the most facilities. So I hope that's what that
was about. I can't get the screen to scroll down
here for some reason, so I hope that was it.
So we will finish this up and guys, thanks so
much for coming on and sharing all this with
us. And we hope that the second half is even
better than the first. You bet. Thank you, Neil.
Thank you so much. Thanks, Neil. All right. Well,
it's time for the call of the night and tonight's
winner receives an autographed Hile Hamrio Hambook,
second edition, courtesy of Hile Sound. And tonight's
winner is Brian KG5GJT. So we'll get that out
to Brian and congratulations to him. So that's
a wrap for this week's HamTalk Live. Thanks to
my guests, Dr. Rob Suggs, KB5EZ, Mike Logan,
KM4WUO, Tanner Jones, W9TWJ, and Ken Ransom.
N5VHO and everybody out there in cyberspace for
listening and for calling in and invite you back
next Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time.
And for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com. And if you like HamTalk
Live, please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever
you listen. It'll help others find us faster.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7375. And may the good DX be yours. Thanks for
watching.