Girls In Aviation
This is the JSCARC’s second time participation in the annual Girls In Aviation event held on September 20 at the Lone Star Museum. JSCARC members K5KGH, KG5URA, and AD5CQ hosted a table at the sold out event. See the blog report and photos here
KI5CWE
The summer semester JSC student intern balloon, “KI5CWE” (named using the callsign of one of the ballooning team members, Kristen), was spotted most recently off the western coast of South America. It’s solar powered tracking beacon had developed an unknown anomaly which has mostly kept it’s tranmissions off-the-air, but on occassion the tracker would activate giving us a bearing of this location and health telemetry. it’s been rather like a stubborn possum who hides and gets spotted on occasion. It’s been alive for 55 days (as of 9/22/25) since it’s initial liftoff from the JSC Gilruth parking lot on July 29.
Last spotting shows it headed toward the Galapagos Islands.
The JSC Fall Semester Ham Radio Committee
We’re just kicking off our new student intern hosting of this new group of interested student. Because of the success we had with our first balloon project, we’ll likely continue this activity as our leading project, led by John AB5SS. The final schedule of all of the planned activities are still in-work, but we’ll also likely host some hands-on soldering activity kits for begineers and advanced persons. If time permits, we might also repeat a fox hunt using our popular NZ1J doppler tracking receivers.
An introduction to ham radio and a tour of the shack is scheduled for this Wednesday Sept 23. Also invited is our partner University of Houston student amateur radio club and the UH AIAA club members.
Jamboree On the Air
The JSCARC will get on the air to participate with the annual Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) event on Oct 18. Although we invited astronauts to attend with us in the shack, to date we’ve not had any indication of any available crew members for the event. Also we have yet to invite any scouts to the shack, which is under consideration, although we’ll get on the air and speak with other on-the-air scouts. The JSC astronaut liaison representative may participate with us.
NASA On The Air
25 years of human presence on the International Space Station is an upcoming activation we will support on November 1, 2025. We’ll fire up our radios alongside MSFC, KSC, and other NASA NOTA participating station to celebrate this historic milestone. In work, is a quindar tone encoder to insert an ” beep tone” used by mission control communications with NASA space vehicles. We’ll attempt to have this capability to add a distinctive signature to our W5RRR station. MSFC and KSC both have this capability.
Belton Hamfest
October 3 is the Belton Hamfest, the largest hamfest in Texas. A few JSCARC members will be in attendance looking for goodies and selling used ham radio items on a reserved table. Any members wishing to sell their goods “on consignment” can contact Dave W5OC texasroadrunner@comcast.net or Keith KG5HOK, so we can pickup and sell at the hamfest.
JSCARC October POTA
After a successful activation of Galveston Island this month, our next JSCARC POTA activation is tentatively planned for October 25, 2025 (Saturday) at the Brazos Bend Park, US-2992. With the fall weather cooling down and the large expanse of this park, we’ll have a nice time and plenty of room to space our radio stations to avoid RF interference amongst each other.
