Pictured: left to right: SMA Cadet Joey Miguel, Tamiami Amateur Radio Club Operator Stephen Phillips, W4SMA Amateur Radio Program Founder George Becht, SMA-CPT John Geimer. Photo by Wes Roberts.

Although NASA astronaut Luke Delaney was some 250 miles above, his voice could be heard loud and clear in the second-floor classroom at Sarasota Military Academy (SMA) high school. On October 22, SMA became one of 13 schools in the nation to make radio contact with the International Space Station (ISS) this school year. SMA did so through the use of two Icom 9700 radios, handled by members of the Tamiami Amateur Radio Club.

The radio contact lasted around 10 minutes and featured a list of questions asked by SMA cadets that were dutifully answered by Delaney aboard the ISS. With the ISS traveling roughly 17,500 miles per hour, the window of opportunity was small. In fact, the contact almost didn’t happen—operators of SMA’s W4SMA Amateur Radio program at SMA had to switch to the backup channel after initial attempts at contact failed.

“This is a giant relief,” says SMA-CPT John Geimer, Instructor of the Radio 1 class at SMA. “When you start this process, it’s very time-consuming, labor-intensive and paperwork-intensive and there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work. I’m hoping that it’s a unique experience for the students. It’s probably safe to say that they’ll look back on it with more reverence and fond memories than they might have anticipated.”

Through the Radio 1 class at SMA, students can earn their amateur radio license and are sent out into the school with HAM radios. For both military and civilian applications, earning an amateur radio license can pay dividends in the future. For many of the cadets, however, having the chance to speak to—or even just witness—radio contact with an astronaut was just plain cool.

“I am a massive space nerd,” says junior Annalena Kayan. “When I learned that I was able to sit in and listen to them make contact with the ISS, I was so excited. I don’t know anybody else who can say that they’ve spoken to an astronaut who is in space.”

Pictured: left to right: SMA Cadet Joey Miguel, Tamiami Amateur Radio Club Operator Stephen Phillips, W4SMA Amateur Radio Program Founder George Becht, SMA-CPT John Geimer. Photo by Wes Roberts.