W0ORE STS-51-F QSL Card - Image Credit John Magliacane KD2BD

The second ham radio transmissions by an amateur radio operator in space were made by Tony England W0ORE during the Challenger shuttle mission STS 51-F in 1985.

He achieved the first ever two-way Slow Scan TV (SSTV) space contact during the flight when he contacted GB3RS the headquaters station of the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB).

Tony W0ORE was running a Motorola model MX-340 handheld 2-meter transceiver and a Robot Research model 1200C slow-scan television scan converter with an antenna fitted on the inside of one of Challengers windows.

Narrated by the Commander and crew, these videos contains footage selected by the astronauts, as well as their comments on the mission. Footage includes launch, onboard crew activities, and landing. The Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) is mentioned 11:40 into the video.

Space Shuttle STS-51-F Challenger Spacelab 2 Post Flight Press Conference Film 1985 Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

The ITN TV news report ‘Space Radio Hams’ on the two-way SSTV contact between GB3RS at RSGB HQ and Tony England W0ORE (believed to have been on 145.550 MHz) can be seen at
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1985/08/04/AS040885006/

Videos taken by a local TV station, of a contact between a school in Staten Island, NY and Tony England W0ORE on STS-51F can be seen at http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2009/historic_shuttle_videos.htm

John Magliacane KD2BD was one of the amateurs who had a contact with Tony England, see his website at http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/kd2bd.html

STS-51-F (also known as Spacelab 2) was the nineteenth flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, and the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 29 July 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, just under eight days later on 6 August 1985, at 12:45:26 pm PDT.

Shuttle Mission STS-51-F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-F

Vintage Videos of STS-9 Columbia Mission and Spacelab http://www.uk.amsat.org/7265