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8-year-old girl's mysterious communication with ISS astronauts Aug 18, 2022

Eight-year-old Isabella Payne spoke to Astronaut Kjell Lindgren via amateur radio as the International Space Station  flew overhead.




The 8-year-old girl has always been keen on the exploration and operation of radio. Of course, this is thanks to the father Matthew who is a license holding amateur radio enthusiast and tutor. They are both members of Hilderstone Radio Society.


Matthew said with great pride:"Isabella has been a member of the radio club ever since she was born and has been playing with the radio since she was six. I teach her how to use the long distance walkie-talkies when we go hiking. I have the full licence so that she can sit on my knee and use the radio to speak to people as long as I am controlling it. Everyone at the club can do that. She has been involved in a few radio events, Children On The Air events, and will hopefully go for her own licence soon."




On the other hand, astronaut Kjell Lindgren also has a radio licence. They have to do it as part of astronaut training as they have amateur radio equipment on the station. Although the equipment is not usually used to chat to the public, while Kjell is an active radio user and has been using it to chat to “lucky ham”, something that has rarely happened over the past decade.


Talking about what happened that night, father Matthew got excited. They had to get the timing just right to catch the ISS as it was overhead. Matthew said: “Isabella had just gone to bed so I had to wake her up quickly and she had only been awake for about 30 seconds when she spoke to him.”

The astronaut tweeted to say the chat with Isabella had been his favourite of the day. The family then received an email from NASA to ask if the recording and a picture of Isabella could be used on its website.




Isabella was very happy to talk about it. "It's really special to be able to talk to the astronauts on the space station. I was woken up by my dad and looked out the window through the amateur radio house. It was pitch black. But after a few minutes, I became super happy because I also got a photo of him floating on the ISS!"

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