Joe,
The D700 is owned and controlled by ARISS--Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. ARISS is an international working group of volunteers with delegates from AMSAT-International and the National Amateur Radio organizations. In the USA this is AMSAT-NA and the ARRL.
The ARISS team works with the 5 regonal space agencies (NASA, CSA, JAXA, ESA, and Roscosmos/Energia) to develop and operate the amateur radio equipment on board ISS. In 1996, NASA asked the amateur radio community to develop a working group to provide a single amateur radio voice to the space agencies...the result was ARISS.
The ISS crew use the ham radio equipment at their discretion on their free time. Like you and me, they have many choices on how to spend their free time, including reading books, watching movies, talking to their families and using the ham radio. Some crew members only use ARISS on their free time to talk to children at schools. Others are more into ham radio...they support the school contacts and will talk to hams on the ground. There are several future crew members in the fall time frame that have expressed significant interest in using the ARISS equipment for general QSOs. We will keep you informed as their flight nears.
Thank you very much for your interest in ARISS.
73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO ARISS International Chairman AMSAT-NA V.P for Human Spaceflight Programs
From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org on behalf of joe cassano aka jmario Sent: Thu 2/7/2008 5:51 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re ISS D700 msg in AMSAT-BB Digest, Vol 3, Issue 71
I'm curious to learn what organization owns/controls the D700 that is on the ISS and how, where, when, and by who decisions are made and implemented regarding switching the D700's mode of operation.
I understand the D700 shutdowns for safety reasons, its use as a educational tool to connect school children worldwide with NASA, its availability as a recreational device for interested ISS residents, and the fact that having astronauts watching over and tweaking the D700 is near or at the bottom of the astronaut's task list. I have never understood how the non-shutdown, non-school D700 time is allocated and who does the allocation.
Joe Cassano K3FMA
Message: 6 Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 07:05:16 -0800 (PST) From: MM ka1rrw@yahoo.com Subject: [amsat-bb] ISS may be off the air during the Shuttle Mission To: "Auke de Jong, VE6PWN" sparkycivic@shaw.ca, AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org, Nate Duehr nate@natetech.com Message-ID: 700075.84809.qm@web56413.mail.re3.yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
. . .
Now that the D700 has been tested for 5+ days in Cross Band repater, its time to find a laptop and start running some Slow Scan TV from ISS again.
www.marexmg.org
73 Miles