At the height of the Cold War when I was 13 years old, I got my amateur (ham) radio novice license. From the confines of a cramped closet in my bedroom, my “ham shack,” I talked via Morse code night and day with other operators – first stateside then, as I upgraded equipment and license class, in countries across the ponds.
When I started reaching hams in the former Soviet Union, my parents took notice - not in a bad way, more in a curious one. The town in which I was raised, Laurel, MD, is just a few miles from the headquarters of the National Security Agency in Fort Meade. Many of my parents’ friends worked at NSA, and there was always chatter at parties about that Clash boy and his radio.
One evening I might be chatting with Moscow, other nights further east into Siberia: Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk – even Chelyabinsk, where that giant meteorite fell last year. I contacted other cool places, too – in Africa, South America, Australia - but because of the Cold War the Soviet hams, while not particularly chatty, were mysterious and enticing.
Aboard Shuttle Columbia in 1983, where Owen Garriott (lower left, ear phones) made the first ham... [+]
I even kept a Rand McNally world atlas marked with conquest cities, along with the “QSL” cards we exchanged following our chats. After a few years I had accumulated more than 100 different countries on all continents, enough for my DXCC – DX Century Club certificate. It was a great hobby, and I learned a lot about science, geography and politics.
But as I grew older, girls and the psychedelic sounds of Cream and Jefferson Airplane inevitably replaced the echoes of Morse code beeps, and my radio – an old Swan 350 transceiver – increasingly sat silent. When I moved to New York for graduate school at Columbia, other than renewing my
Later, though, as an adventure journalist, I got to visit some of the exotic places I had contacted and fantasized about – the Seychelles Islands, the Amundsen-Scott Station at the geographic South Pole - even spiritual Tuva in central Asia, famous for Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, throat singers and rare triangle-shaped postage stamps. The trips all reminded me fondly of my boyhood hobby.
Then after America had been to the moon and Cold War tensions had eased, ham radio contacts with civilians became possible from space! The first were from astronaut Owen Garriott (W5LFL) aboard Shuttle Columbia STS-9 in 1983. Garriott chatted with a few dozen lucky mortals on the ground, including Jordan’s King Hussein and Senator Barry Goldwater, both avid ham operators.
Ham radio operators Owen (W5LFL) and Richard (W5KWQ) Garriott today, on terra firma. (Photo: Stacey... [+]
Last year by chance, I had the opportunity to interview none other than Garriott. His 1983 maverick radio contacts came up, of course, and I was fascinated. “When I finally got the equipment set up, we were roughly over Alaska coming down to the continental U.S.,” he explained. “I called ‘CQ’, which means if anyone can hear please respond. A fellow named Lance Collister in Montana came back. There were so many people calling me at once!”
After the Garriott interview, I got a far-fetched idea. While my own equipment long since had deteriorated, an organization I belong to - The Explorers Club – has a ham station (K2XP) on the top floor of its quaint headquarters in Manhattan. Maybe, at some point, it could serve as a place to conduct a chat with
As I was planning Space Stories earlier this year, an all-day Club event Oct. 25, I thought such a contact might add to the day’s festivities. I also knew that Jim Enterline, the station manager, had been trying to get the Club’s radio involved in more educational activities. In passing, I mentioned the ISS idea to him.
The kicker: Richard Garriott (W5KWQ), son of Owen and a ham who also has had contacts with Earth from space, coincidentally will be presenting at Space Stories. In 2008, he flew to ISS aboard a Soyuz rocket as a paying passenger. (Oh the ironies! But that's another story.)
“The most amazing thing," the younger Garriott told me, "is that I’d be over the South Pacific at 3 a.m., no land masses in sight, and when I clicked the radio several operators were waiting. Everybody follows the track of ISS. I was shocked by how passionate the ham community is.”
We hear you Richard, and we hope ISS can hear us later this month. Like you, I'm one of those passionate hams, albeit re-energized, and I can't wait to be part of the exciting Club contact. It truly will be an out-of-this-world experience!
UPDATE: You can read a transcript of The Explorers Club conversation with Alexander Gerst on the ISS at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2014/10/29/earth-to-space-station-do-you-copy-roger-that-earth/2/.
