[South Florida DX Association] ARLS009 ISS commander shooting for WAC, WAC and maybe DXCC from space

[Bill Marx]

SB SPACE ARL ARLS009
> ARLS009 ISS commander shooting for WAC, WAC and maybe DXCC from 
> space
> 
> ISS Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, has proven to be
> one of the more active Amateur Radio on the International Space
> Station (ARISS) operators among ham radio operators who have
> occupied the space station. In fact, McArthur's having so much fun
> operating from space that he's hoping to complete Worked All
> Continents (WAC), Worked All States (WAS) and maybe even DXCC from
> space.
> 
> "Bill McArthur continues to be active on voice and now has a couple
> of personal goals he is trying to achieve," says ARISS Ham Radio
> Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO. "He is trying to talk to
> someone in every state in the United States. According to his log,
> he has managed to work 37 states so far." In addition, Ransom says,
> McArthur wants to work as many countries as he can.
> 
> "He's off to a good start with 28 DXCC entities in his log as of
> December 12," he said. "These contacts have been with amateur
> stations on every continent with the exception of Antarctica." That
> contact could happen this weekend, however. Although the IARU does
> not require WAC applicants to have worked Antarctica, Ransom says
> that ARISS tradition calls for an Antarctica QSO to achieve WAC from
> space "since the astronauts seem to have an unfair advantage."
> 
> Expedition 9 astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, became the first ISS
> crew member to contact all seven of the world's continents via
> Amateur Radio from NA1SS.
> 
> States on McArthur's most-needed list are Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho,
> Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania,
> Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
> 
> "The list of DXCC entities is just starting to grow, so he needs a
> lot right now," Ransom conceded this week, adding that he hasn't
> included ARISS school group contacts in his counts and hopes
> McArthur will achieve his goals without them. "We won't know the
> official results for months after the mission," he added.
> 
> McArthur is about halfway through his approximately six-month duty
> tour aboard the ISS. He and crewmate Valery Tokarev will return to
> Earth in April.
> 
> During Thanksgiving week, McArthur reportedly made some three dozen
> casual contacts, most of them over North America and a few over
> Europe and New Zealand. He made contacts with stations in the US on
> December 6. He also had QSOs with Australia, New Zealand and the US
> on December 11.
> 
> The NA1SS worldwide voice and packet downlink frequency is 145.800
> MHz. In Regions 2 and 3 (the Americas, and the Pacific), the voice
> uplink is 144.49 MHz. In Region 1 (Europe, Central Asia and Africa),
> the voice uplink is 145.20 MHz. The worldwide packet uplink is
> 145.99 MHz. All frequencies are subject to Doppler shift. The
> Science at NASA Web site provides location information for the ISS
> at, http://science.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html.
> 
> The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program
> is an international educational outreach with US participation by
> ARRL, AMSAT and NASA.  Information can be found at,
> http://www.rac.ca/ariss.
> NNNN
> /EX
> 
>