Project

One of the many consequences of our school and space project VTISL – ARISS (by now far-famed) is another unique event.
A lot of pupils who had asked questions to Frank De Winne (ISS) in direct radio contact got so fascinated by this wonderful event that they wanted to do something more… they got a taste for radio contact.
Within the Electricity – Electronics (EE) department (4th, 5th and 6th year) there was a group of pupils who wanted to get their licence as a radio amateur. What is more, the training field of both the EE department and the radio amateur training has a lot of common topics.
Too often it is thought that a radio amateur is a person who makes radio programmes e.g. for a free broadcasting station. However this is not what it is! After taking lessons and passing the BIPT3 exams, the candidates can prove they have sufficient knowledge about electricity, electronics, communication techniques, legislation and operational procedures. Only then does one get the licence for “private radio amateur”, with a callsign4 linked to it.
 A radio amateur is a person who, according to rules and standards, has his own radio equipment. The intention is to make a connection with other radio amateurs on earth or in space (!) with the technical and scientific knowledge (s)he has gained. In case of an emergency (catastrophes or terrible accidents) radio amateurs are always willing to share their knowledge (communication and/or technical expertise) for free for the community. Some examples may illustrate this: the Harald of Free Enterprise disaster, floodings, the 9/11 attacks in New York, hurricane Katrina in January 2006, the earthquakes in L’Aquila (Italy) in 2009 and in Haiti in 2010, …  

After getting this licence it is not only possible to take up a useful and interesting hobby and/or to use it as a basis for the final examination paper (the so-called GIP), for some pupils this will certainly prove to be an excellent starting point for further studies or career.
During the Easter holidays, when the half term exams had just finished, we had an appointment with the BITP exam centre on 6th April. As a proud shepherd I went to the exam centre with my flock for the theoretical part of the exam.
And now we are proud to communicate that our school has some 20 officially recognised radio amateurs, with a “Candidate Private Radio Amateur” licence and one amateur with a HAREC5 licence! 
All this definitely makes it a school with an Electricity-Electronics department, unique in the world!
Patriek De Temmerman,
Electronics & telecommunication teacher

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You’ve probably already heard in the media that our astronaut Frank De Winne is going to the ISS in May as board commander.
We are going to create a directional transmission (the transmission by a transmitting system using a directional antenna to minimize power requirements and to diminish effect of interference) between the Earth and the ISS (International space station).

We were granted permission by ARISS to make a radio connection in the months to come.
We are going to make this connection with antennas we’ve designed and developed and we’ve also designed the steering process for the azimuth and elevation movement engines step by step. These engines were put at our disposal by UBA ODE. We also need these engines to make the connection.

Firstly we made the engines turn the antenna to the left and to the right using a relay-system.

How did we make this possible?

Firstly we’ve examined the engines and we’ve put the information in a scheme.
Secondly we managed to draw the control in a CAD- program.
Afterwards we only had to make a version on a printed circuit board.
It was a real challenge to make this possible with our own CNC machine.
And, we succeeded as a TEAM!

The engine steering has to be fully computerized. In order to fully automate the  connection with ISS , we used a sat tracking program that sends the live coordinates of the ISS.
These coordinates are put in our interface card.
This card translates the digital input into a readable signal for our engines.
Thanks to this,  we will be able to turn our antennas and make a maximal connection that will last for about 8 - 10 minutes, the time the ISS will pass our region from East to West. The exact time schedule will be decided by NASA.

The aim of this project is not only to establish the connection with the ISS but more importantly to work on this project with the whole school, within the different departments, each within its branch specialties, to create a project to which the whole school is committed.

Once the connection with the ISS has taken place, the project does not end.
We intend to share our knowledge and experience with other schools in order to make other students share our enthusiasm for technical studies, science and space.

Schematics:

The main station:

The backup station:

The satellite tracking programme:

Here you can see a screen dump out of a satellite tracking programme on the 21th of March 2009.
The ISS was some minutes earlier (20.23h) visible for us from west to east..