Ham Astronaut

Ham-astronaut to be league's honored guest at ARRL EXPO 2007 in Dayton
Reprinted from The ARRL Letter, Vol 26, No 13 (Mar 30, 2007)

NASA Space shuttle veteran and International Space Station Expedition 12
commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, will be the League's guest at Dayton
Hamvention <http://www.hamvention.org> 2007 in May. Hamvention takes place
this year Friday through Sunday, May 18-20, at Hara Arena near Dayton, Ohio.
The first astronaut to work all states from space, McArthur has been
applauded for inspiring others through his ham radio activities from NA1SS.
He'll be featured speaker during a closed ARRL reception Thursday, May 17,
and will be on hand all day Friday, May 18, to greet and talk with visitors
to ARRL EXPO 2007 at Hamvention <http://www.arrl.org/announce/nc/2007/>.
ARRL also anticipates that McArthur will be able to lead an Amateur Radio on
the International Space Station (ARISS) forum at Dayton Hamvention for
first-day visitors.

A showcase of exhibits and activities aimed at enhancing your ham radio and
Dayton Hamvention experience, ARRL EXPO will take place in the Ballarena of
Hara Arena. Open to members and nonmembers, ARRL EXPO will display a
sampling of what the League has to offer, including mini-forums on various
topics and a Youth Lounge. The ARRL retail counter will be stocked with
popular publications and products, and visitors can join or renew ARRL while
there.

A graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, McArthur, 55, holds a
master's degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech. As the keynote
speaker at the 2006 AMSAT Space Symposium banquet and participant in the
ARISS International conference last October in the San Francisco Bay area,
McArthur enjoyed the opportunity to meet many radio amateurs during his
stay, including some he'd worked from NA1SS.

During his six months aboard the ISS -- from October 2005 until April 2006
-- McArthur became the most active ham-astronaut ever to serve in space,
logging more than 1800 QSOs and picking up several honorary operating
awards, including Worked All States (WAS) and Worked All Continents (WAC).
He told his AMSAT audience last fall that the tremendous enthusiasm of the
radio amateurs and students he talked with via ham radio helped him to focus
on why he was aboard the ISS.

Over the course of his ISS duty tour, McArthur, a veteran of four
spaceflights and spacewalks, also established an impressive new milestone of
37 ARISS school contacts. In addition, he put 130 DXCC entities into the
NA1SS log and is continuing to collect the necessary QSL cards to qualify
for an honorary DXCC.

While in space, McArthur managed to contact all continents, including
Antarctica, on both VHF and UHF. He and Expedition 12 Flight Engineer Valery
Tokarev also released SuitSat-1 into orbit. An astronaut since 1990,
McArthur now serves as safety and mission assurance manager for the shuttle
program at Johnson Space Center.

Updated 4/2/07 HR