Italian school ISTITUTO ISTRUZIONE SUPERIORE STATALE
“CORINALDESI – PADOVANO” organized a serie of summer educational moments. Fisrt one was in cooperation with radioamateurs from ARI Senigallia and ISS Fan Club. The staff from ARI Senigallia was composed by Fabrizio Fava IK6ZDE, Francesco Schiavoni IW6CVN and IZ6SAC Andrea Santini. For ISS fan Club, Micol Ivancic IU2LXR.
The event needed some morning preparations for amplification and radio equipment and there was an unexpected conference with Erasmus delegation. The evening event was presented by the boys, who gave the floor to the Manager, Dr. Anna Maria Nicolosi.
After greeting the speakers, they passed the floor to Fabrizio Fava IK6ZDE, President of the local Section of the Italian Radio Amateurs Association, who presented some slides, to make the participants aware of the activities carried out by radio amateurs, and to prepare for the next part of the evening with the intervention of Micol Ivancic IU2LXR in videoconference to talk about the ISS, ARISS and focus on SSTV transmissions.
Download the slides ITIS Senigallia 5 Luglio 5 Luglio ENG
Fabrizio explained the peculiarities of the Italian Radio Amateurs Association, the National legislation and the authorization for radio amateur activity, use for civil protection purposes, contests, diplomas, satellite activities were treated in a very superficial way, experimentation with microwaves. A mention of Guglielmo Marconi and the main components of a radio station could not be missing: transceiver, connecting cable, antenna. To make children understand how current the invention of the radio can be, they were pointed out to be in possession of an advanced transceiver with which they all have an almost morbid relationship: their smartphone. Then were given hints on electromagnetic waves and subdivision based on frequencies, their propagation along the various reflections of the day and night atmosphere. Outline of connections via meteor scatter, air scatter, EME. Finally, a nice cartoon by I6IBE depicting the ISS and one of the most followed diplomas by SSTV enthusiasts. Then followed and closed the presentation Micol Ivancic IU2LXR, talking about the ISS and ham radio with nice pictures and graphics, the focus was on SSTV transmissions: what kind of signal is, how to receive, how to decode, how to apply for official award.
During the following break with some food&drink offered by the school, students were invited to install the Robot36 application on their smartphone for decoding the images during the simulation. Students simulated a RX from ISS while OM transmitted some of the audio of images decoded during the recent SSTV campaign, on the 144.750 FM frequency, through a common portable vhf; the signals were generated by SSTV encoder, another smartphone application. On stage, a receiver was active, the sound of which was then diffused by the amplification. Students were able to receive images on their telephones and on the large screen previously used for videoconferencing.
When ISS will be transmitting SSTV again, students will be ready to receive and to apply for the official ARISS SSTV award!
The partecipation exceeded what expected and the team received appreciation from the Erasmus delegation. Giordana de Liguori and Samuele Gambadori, school interlocutors, were very satisfied for the expericence.
Some pictures:
