UA1LO, Yuri Gagarin to be remembered in Scotland.

[GM4BRB]

UA1LO — Yuri Gagarin, as the first man in space is to be memorialised at Skara Brae in the Scottish Orkney Islands.
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See YouTube from Russia today
April 14, 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dxYEOm7So&feature=user (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dxYEOm7So&feature=user)

Also a short piece from the Russkiy MIR Foundation:
11.04.08:
http://russkiymir.org/en/news/index.php?PHPSESSID=5d199de14b8a6d92032a688724904c aa&id4=1313 (http://russkiymir.org/en/news/index.php?PHPSESSID=5d199de14b8a6d92032a688724904c aa&id4=1313)

73.:rolleyes:

[k5co]

Actually, Yuri Gagarin was just the first of several Russians to survive the ordeal. It has always been the practice to conceal the failures as though the Soviet Union never could have one.
:rolleyes:

[VE2ITZ]

Actually, Yuri Gagarin was just the first of several Russians to survive the ordeal. It has always been the practice to conceal the failures as though the Soviet Union never could have one.
:rolleyes:

?????


And?

[KT4AT]

I remember shaking hands with Yuri. I was 11 eleven years old. He visited my school in 1964. This happened in Lycee Lalande, in Bourg-en-Bresse, Eastern France. I remember his uniform, straight soviet issue, with the red star. But, he was kind enough to meet with us, and addressed us, and the Russian language Teacher in the school, Ivana, she was 60 years old, did the translation, back and forth.

KT4AT
High-Point, NC

[KT4AT]

Actually I shook the hand of Yuriy Gagarin. That was in 1964. I was 11 years old. Yuriy visited our school, Lycee Lalande, in Eastern France. It was in winter, and I remember him wearing a russian uniform, with a red star on the front of his hat. The Russian language teacher in the school, Ivana, did the translation, back and forth.

KT4AT - High-Point, NC

[ua1osm]

I was UA1LR in Leningrad (1969-74) during my Univ. study.
I knew a man, who was UA1LO and I never heard that Yuri Gagarin was a ham. During his childhood he lived in a country, small village, and there was no chance to join any radio hobby community. USSR did not produce ham radio equipment, and it was fully impossible for anyone to buy any of foreign type. The only chance to join ham or any other technical hobbysts community for a young boy or girl was joining soviet MARS system, called DOSAAF. Memebers of DOSAAF could use numerous club radio stations, aeroclubs, etc etc in regional centers, as well they were getting obsolete written off military equipment from DOSAAF or military regiments or could obtain that gear on corruptive basis trading with officers or NCOs.
Gagarin was a boy, who used to work at some factory, then decided to join DOSAAF and go further to military aviation. He learned as a future MIG fighter pilot and become it. He was far away of radio all his life. His spaceflight, first ever in history of mankind, was mortally dangerous, since equipment worked with numerous faults, but he mastered to survive. His flight diary was hidden and nearly abandoned by KGB, and only recently was discovered and opened to public.
The situation during his historic flight was about the same as with first ever US Apollo lunar mission by Neil Armstrong and two other spacemen. They were in so desperate situation prior to start back, that US President was ready to announce their tragic death on Moon. That went like that with Gagarin also.
But both he (and Apollo crew too) was skill enough to happily avoid all the adversities and left the spacecraft as prescribed with parachute just after it became possible.
Yuri Gagarin was never allowed to fly to the space again, fulfilling the role of soviet propaganda man, which he hated by all his soul.
He insisted on his training flights on jet MiG-15 fighterpalne again. On March 27, 1968 he died with his instructor colonel V. Seryogin on training MIG-15UTI flight at 10.31 AM. At altitude of 4200 m fighterplane cabin lost hermetity, and at same moment engine stopped. The plane lost all the altitude in a minute and crashed nearby Novoselovo village, Vladimir region.
You can look at that place using Google Earth program. 56 02 54 N 39 01 10 E
I happened to be there at that sad moment not far away and saw rushing resque groups on 20 helicopters at the time. That sad story is still dark mistery to understand in details even for an aviation devoted specialist, and several points of view are always presenting in Internet on dozens of Russian blogs and sites. URLs? I can supply you if interested.
The cause of that attention is that Leo Brezhnev, soviet leader of those times, ordered not to publish official materials and conclusions of commission of investigators in 1968 after commission ended its work. The influence of UFO invasion might be discovered...

Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered to begin new thorough investigation, for most of the plane remains (over 90%) were collected and sealed in 1968 for long term storage.

[GM4BRB]

I was UA1LR in Leningrad (1969-74) during my Univ. study.
I knew a man, who was UA1LO and I never heard that Yuri Gagarin was a ham. He was far away of radio all his life.

I was not aware there is conjecture surrounding this story of UA1LO.
From all the online 'famous hams' lists, I had deducted that the matter was clarified & "as clear as driven snow". Apparently not!

Checkout the thread in the AMSAT archives from Martin Davidoff, K2UBC. Dated 2002.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/amsat-bb/200209/msg00249.html

& from Frank, K0BLT.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/amsat-bb/200209/msg00250.html

It almost seems the matter is being re-consigned to amateur 'Mythology', ready to hit the circular filing cabinet!

73, Gram.

[W5HLH]

While I don't remember his exact call, there were quite a few cards arriving from Box 88 in Moscow in the mid-1960s that had a photo of Yuri Gagarin-----photo cards of Soviet hams were very, very rare indeed (Ernst Krenkl, RAEM, is the only other one I can recall)----bore the name "Yuri Gagarin," and were signed "Yuri." I think all were for CW QSOs, mainly on 15 and 10 meters. Maybe someone with a collection of QST and CQ magazines from that era, or various DX bulletins, can help clarify this.

If Yuri wasn't a ham, then some folks at the Central Radio Club in Moscow were pulling a very elaborate joke on the world, presumably with Yuri's consent----I can't imagine them pulling a scam on someone with a Hero of the Soviet Union medal!

BTW, each Vostok vehicle had a CW key at the cosmonaut's control panel and much of their operational communications were via CW around 19 and 20 MHz. This may have been where he learned CW, and after his flight no doubt Gagarin would have had no trouble getting a ham license and his own station had he wished.

At any rate, I certainly hope the first man into space was a ham!!

[k4kyv]

Actually, Yuri Gagarin was just the first of several Russians to survive the ordeal. It has always been the practice to conceal the failures as though the Soviet Union never could have one.

A friend of mine in the US intelligence community back in the 60's was part of a team that monitored Soviet space communications. During one of their missions. the manned space craft missed its mark upon return, and was deflected into an orbit that would take them far away from earth, not to return for centuries, if ever. He said they monitored communications between the personnel on board and ground control, until they finally lost contact, probably from power failure. One of the crew members was a woman.

Of course this disastrous mission failure never made the news.

[G1VKB]

I think there should be a memorial to Laika the little russian dog who was sent in to space all wired up as an early experiment and there was no hope of coming back alive, she was incinerated on re entry. :mad: G1VKB