Nobody talks about it, but amateur radio guys are the backbone of American society. A recent example of such a guy is Doug, an amateur ham radio operator who, over Memorial Day weekend, managed to get in contact with the International Space Station and talk to astronaut Woody Hoburg using his homemade antenna.

After repeated attempts to reach the ISS, holding his antenna aloft and sharing his call sign, “Kilo Bravo 8 Mike,” as well as calling the Space Station’s (NA1SS), Doug was finally successful. Hoburg can be heard saying, “Kilo Bravo 8 Mike, NA1SS got you loud and clear aboard the Space Station, welcome aboard,” which undoubtedly had to be one of the top ten coolest moments in Doug’s life. Doug responds with, “Thank you much 73” — 73 means “best regards” in Ham radio speak. A brief conversation, but an incredibly cool one nonetheless.

Commenters were thrilled for Doug, albeit amused by how easy it apparently is to contact the International Space Station. “Dude spam called them till they answered,” wrote one commenter. Another laughed at the fact that the “space station just says welcome aboard to anyone who can reach them .”

Others jokingly suggested a random fellow radio enthusiast was simply f–ing with Doug: “Some trucker on the highway: Yeah this is the ISS welcome aboard,” and “Neighbor with a Walkie: Yeah you got the ISS Station here .”

For his part, in his YouTube comments, Doug explained that many astronauts are ham operators, telling one fan, “They do ham radio in their off time. Sometimes they even send SSTV images.”

This much is certain: No one has ever gone as ham as Doug and Hoburg just went ham — in every single way.