http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7636229.stm
Disappointing to note that the BBC's on line news report of the ISS school contact today with a school in England noted that the contact took place via "satellite phone" doh!
Bearing in mind there were three or four TV crews there, it is surprising that they were not given a handout with the facts or that the organisers failed to brief the media properly!
A bit of a waste of good publicity for ARISS and the amateur radio service methinks!
David KG4ZLB/M0ZLB
Hello David
Disappointing to note that the BBC's on line news report of the ISS school contact today with a school in England noted that the contact took place via "satellite phone" doh!
Bearing in mind there were three or four TV crews there, it is surprising that they were not given a handout with the facts or that the organisers failed to brief the media properly!
A bit of a waste of good publicity for ARISS and the amateur radio service
methinks!
David KG4ZLB/M0ZLB
If you are offering to help to do PR then please do so. I don't think any of the _volunteers_ today profess to be experts in that field.
Of course we'd love to have amateur radio stated everywhere. That is my prime objective after making a successful contact. It was mentioned in the BBC clip, but only once. We welcome help from those who are able to make this work better.
73, Howard G6LVB
Hi Howard,
Always happy to volunteer but geographically speaking I can't really be much help to AMSAT-UK except on rare trips home :-)
Trevor (M5AKA) is the AMSAT-UK PR guru and does a fine job - after I brought this to his attention I believe he will be in touch with the BBC to have the article corrected.
Of course mistakes happen but if no-one notices them and reports them then errors remain and for something as high profile as this we really can't afford to pass up on any publicity.
In response to your e-mail though, I am not sure why "volunteers" would need to be "experts" in PR - the question asked by the media would be "/how is the contact made/", the answer would be "/amateur radio"/ - how satellite phones got mentioned and by whom is more the issue I would have thought!
Having been part of a team that conducted a highly successful School contact a couple of years ago, I am well aware of the enormous pressures that are ever present with these things and therefore things can slip! We had two TV News crews and 3 local papers in attendance and we had pre-prepared Q&A crib sheets for them to ensure that the subsequent reporting was as controlled and therefore as accurate as possible.
73
participants (3)
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David - KG4ZLB/MØZLB -
David - M0ZLB
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Howard Long