VTI St. Lucas HTEC – To Boldly Go……
Even in the age of the Internet and digital wireless communication, amateur radio is still loved by millions of enthusiasts around the world. At VTI Sint Lucas in Belgium, students have built an antenna using their Haas CNC machine tools and in Autumn 200
A student team of amateur radio enthusiasts at the VTI St Lucas (VTISL) technical school in Oudenaarde, Belgium is looking forward to taking part in a space adventure that blasts off in the next few days.
The team has designed a radio antenna capable of receiving a signal from the International Space Station (ISS), which is in Low Earth Orbit of approximately 350km. In September of this year they plan to talk to Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne, who will travel to the ISS for a 6-month mission, together with Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk. Their Russian Soyuz spacecraft is set to launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in late May.
To build the antenna, the 15-19 year-old Ham radio enthusiasts - all of whom are studying electrical systems and electronics - enlisted the help of their mechanical engineering colleagues who used the VTI St Lucas HTEC Haas CNC machine tools to make various, structural components for the 6 meter long assembly.
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