TECHNOLOGY

Making contact with the International Space Station requires a lot of equipment! We also rely heavily on computers to locate the ISS and tune our transceivers to adjust for doppler effects.

We use Amateur Radio equipment to talk to the astronauts. Amateur Radio is a range of radio frequencies that are used for experimental work by qualified operators all over the world (and in space!).

The Space Station is traveling at 27 000 kmh, and takes around 10 minutes to cross our sky. We have to point our antenna's (called Yagi's) at the station for the best signal. We use a machine called a rotator to do this. Our computer gets the position of the space station from the internet, and controls where the antennas are pointing.

We also have to change our frequency because of a phenomenon called Doppler shift. It's like when a car approaches you from a distance - the noise from the car increases in frequency as it approaches, then reduces in frequency as it moves away from you. The same thing happens with radio waves! The same computer that controls the antenna adjusts the radio frequency to compensate for Doppler shift.

So what if a computer or radio fails?

The backup station is ready to go! We even have backup batteries and generators ready just in case!

What else are we doing?

Well, people all over the world will be able to hear the St Thomas’ students talk to the Astronauts, via a program called 'Echo Link'. Echo Link connects to our backup transceiver and puts the sound from the transceiver onto the internet. Other amateur operators will re broadcast the signal to cities all over the world by connecting to our Echolink server! So we are not only talking to an Astronaut, we are talking to the entire planet!