In Pursuit of the Space Shuttle Columbia
by Mike Nikolich
(This article first appeared in the December 1983 issue of DX Chicago)
While I’m not exactly the world’s biggest scanner nut, I must profess a great deal of interest in the recent mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia. After waiting months for it to finally blast off, I decided to go all out to nail down that verie from the A.R.R.L.
You may remember, Shuttle Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, was planning to broadcast to fellow hams back on earth on the downlink frequency of 145.550 MHz, a frequency well within the coverage of many scanners.
As editor of SCAN Magazine, official publication of the Scanner Association, I also had a professional interest in the mission. On behalf of SCAN, we prepared a press release publicizing the mission and reporting its planned blast-off and Garriott’s planned activity. SCAN, in conjunction with the A.R.R.L., NASA and Electra Company, was able to use Electra’s 800 number to provide daily updates on the Shuttle mission, including probable time Garriott would be operating.
When the Shuttle actually blasted off, I was not prepared for what was about to happen. At 6:00 p.m. on the Sunday before lift-off, a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times called to inquire about the potential of a typical listener actually hearing Garriott. I told him. My comments appeared in the paper the next day.
On Monday, November 28th, while the Shuttle was airborne, the calls began flooding in. A radio station in Rochester, NY, WBBF, interviewed me on a phone-in talk show. WDIV-TV in Detroit wanted information. Then I got a call that really gave me a jolt. ABC Nightline in Washington D.C. wanted to come to my house to film me listening to the Shuttle!
The first scheduled broadcast from Garriott was Wednesday morning, between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. The Nightline crew was due in first thing Wednesday morning. Tuesday night, Kevin Mikell and I braved the subzero temperatures to string up a hastily-purchased 2-meter ground plane antenna in hopes that it would provide better reception when Garriott’s footprint was within range of the Chicago area.
At 10:00 a.m., the Nightline crew was there. I was nervous as hell. A bank of scanners, including Bearcat 210XL, Bearcat 350, bearcat 20/20 and Bearcat 300 were tuned to various VHF frequencies. The 210XL was on 145.550 MHz, Garriott’s primary downlink frequency. The Bearcat 300 was scanning all frequencies between 144 and 145.900 MHz. The Bearcat 350 was scanning Garriott’s back-up downlink frequencies. The Bearcat 20/20 was scanning the uplink frequencies that local hams were using in an attempt to establish two-way contact with Garriott. My Hammarlund HQ-180 was perched on 14.280 MHz, W5RRR from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Drake SPR-4 was used for back-up.
Needless to say, the crew was impressed. For the next hour the cameras rolled as I programmed the scanners and tuned the receivers. Long shots. Short shots. Wide angle shots. Hand shots. Close-ups. But the real test was Garriott himself. Would it be possible for a person using a tiny hand-held transceiver with an output of a mere 5 Watts to be able to reach us?
The cameras continued to roll … but Garriott didn’t cooperate. He never did broadcast to us Chicagoans. We listened until noon, when they closed shop and went home. They promised to return the following Friday, when Garriott was scheduled to broadcast again.
I never did manage to hear Garriott and the crew never returned. I guess everyone has that moment in the limelight and mine has passed. Oh well; at least we took some photos … just for the memory.
Even if I didn’t get an interview by Ted Koppel that evening, it still was a gas being filmed to DX. How many other DXers can say the same.