Pittsburgh amateur radio group celebrates 80 years of providing emergency communications during disasters
After eight decades of providing emergency backup communications on a volunteer basis during some of this region’s worst storms and disasters, members of the Steel City Amateur Radio Club will be hitting the airwaves this week to sing their own praises.
3 In Your Town: Summits on the Air
On a summer afternoon in Roane County, Tennessee, high atop Mount Roosevelt, Chip Snyder is long and short dashing radio frequencies all across the country. “I’m part of an international group of amateur radio operators,” he explained. “The name of which is Summits on the Air. Now this group of amateur radio operators, there are about seven thousand of us in the U.S. As a hobby, climb mountain peaks and set up radio stations temporarily on the top of these peaks.”
NASA recognizes ARISS
Kathryn Lueders, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA has posted a statement recognizing Amateur Radio On The International Space Station (ARISS) for its accomplishments in promoting STEM initiatives through amateur radio. For over 20 years, the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, a non-profit supported by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN), has connected classrooms on Earth with astronauts aboard the space station, allowing students to engage directly with astronauts in real-time. Using ham radio equipment installed on the space station and a ham radio station on the ground, students are able to establish a direct radio connection with the space station and ask the crew questions about living in space and what it takes to become an astronaut.