Submitted by Pat Lightcap
Ham Operators in the United States and around the world
were excited about a Ham in space in 1983. It was the
second year of the Space Shuttle progam and Dr. Owen
Garriott, a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, was aboard
the space craft Columbia on STS-9. He had received
permission to attempt radio contact with civilian Ham
Operators on Earth during his free time as a Mission
Specialist 1 and crew member for the Columbia–SpaceLab1
mission in late 1983.
On the morning of Wednesday, December 7, 1983 Dr. Garriott’s
voice and call sign, W5LFL, were plainly heard over Florida
and Georgia as the Shuttle Columbia came across Florida and
up the east coast of the United States on orbit 144 of the
mission. At 7:58 AM W5LFL confirmed a contact with WA4BEV,
Jimmy Brooks, in Georgia. Jimmy was at his home in Valdosta
and used a homemade antenna for the transmissions on
145.550 mhz. Dr. Garriott was using a 5 watt walkie-talkie with
a temporary antenna taped inside a Shuttle window. During
the contact the space craft was approximately 155 miles above
the Earth.
The series of two-way radio transmissions from space on this
mission were so successful that amateur radio has been a
significant part of space flights since 1983. Ham Radio not
only provides a back-up emergency communications system
but has also allowed multiple educational opportunities with
school students and others when radio equipment was set up
at their institutions and young people communicated directly
with astronaughts as they cirlced the Earth. Today the
International Space Station continues the tradition of Amateur
Radio contacts from space.
As the Space Shuttle program comes to an end the many good
memories associated with space flight will remain with those
who have grown up with the excitement of our men and women
blasting off in to space–the new frontier.
The audio recordings with this story were made by Pat Lightcap,
a Ham Operator in Madison, Florida. He was parked in front of
the Madison County High School just before 8:00 AM on
December 7, 1983 and received the Shuttle Columbia radio
transmissions on his mobile VHF radio.
