Fram2Ham

The Fram2Ham competition was an exciting and unique opportunity for university and high school students (ages 16-25) to engage with space exploration and amateur radio. As part of the groundbreaking Fram 2 mission – the first human spaceflight to Earth's polar regions – astronauts onboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule transmitted Slow Scan Television (SSTV) images.

The challenge for participating teams of students from different educational institutions (3-5 per team) was to receive these fragmented images of three geographically significant polar locations using amateur radio equipment. By piecing together the received fragments, teams had to identify the locations and explain their historical relevance to polar exploration.

While anyone could receive the images, only registered international teams of high school and university students were eligible to officially participate and submit their solutions for a chance to win special prizes, including QSL cards signed by the astronauts and featuring space-flown Fram 2 mission stickers. This competition aimed to blend the thrill of space communication with a fascinating puzzle-solving element, encouraging teamwork and learning about polar history and technology.

Our team, code-named the ARISStocats, was a joint effort along with schools in Italy, Lithuania, Switzerland, and California. We worked collaboratively in the weeks leading up to the mission to talk about antenna design, station characteristics, and generally prepare for all of the unknowns that would accompany this first of it's kind mission. 

I am pleased to say that through our combined efforts we were the GRAND PRIZE winners of the competition!!! We will be receiving several items to diplay at our K3NWL station including items that were flow in space on the SpaceX capsule!!

One of the things I am most proud of is that our K3NWL team captured enough images and did their own independent solving of the puzzles and the questions. This would have been enough for them to qualify on their OWN for the competition. Through our international team, we got all 12 images, but I feel good about our contribution as one of very few public high schools participating, in that we could have at least met the minimum qualification on our own!