A favourite pastime of ours while we were on holiday in Spain was to gaze at the night sky. There were no city lights nearby, no clouds and no moon to illuminate the sky. This meant that satellites roaming the night sky were a very common sight. However, occasionally a satellite would illuminate brightly and then fade. What caused this?
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鈥� Your previous correspondent, Barry Hahn, writes that he would like to simultaneously hear from and visually observe an artificial satellite. This is certainly possible if you catch the correct pass of the International Space Station and listen on its VHF amateur radio downlink frequency (see websites below).
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In 1991 I organised an amateur radio link between British astronaut Helen Sharman鈥檚 Juno mission on the Mir space station and a number of British schools. A week before the contact in May I made a test transmission to cosmonaut Musa Manarov on board Mir. As I spoke with him, Mir was clearly visible in its 12-minute transition across a clear night sky.
鈥淭he pass was made more special by the sight of a supply craft that could be seen a short distance behind the space station Mir鈥�
A few years later I was asked to give a talk on the amateur radio aspects of the Juno mission to the Denby Dale Amateur Radio Society. There happened to be a visible pass that evening, so at the appointed time the members were ushered outside to observe Mir and simultaneously listen to the cosmonauts鈥� transmissions. This pass was made even more special by the sight of a supply craft that could be clearly seen a short distance behind Mir and was due to dock a few hours afterwards.
Information on amateur radio and how to listen for the ISS may be found at and .
Richard Horton, Director of Applied Physics & ICT Systems, Harrogate Ladies鈥� College, North Yorkshire, UK