At 07:40 PM 6/16/2010, Dave Guimont wrote:
I hope we are getting great financial support from the fm'ers. I assume the reason for fm is the assumed cost of ssw/cw rigs in
Dear Dave and Vince and the group,
You guys have to know that I would love to put up a linear HEO and resurrect the +20 net!
The reality is that AMSAT just cannot afford to pay for a HEO launch. I do think we need to work as hard as we can to find another way to get there but we haven't found a way just yet.
The ARISSat-1 satellite, which many of us are hard at work on right now, will have a linear transponder but of course it is a LEO.
The AMSAT-Fox project is FM because we need a replacement for AO-51 before it dies (perhaps THE most popular satellite at present) and it is hard to generate enough power from a 1U CubeSat to have a really good linear transponder.
Hang in there. The world has changed and it is much more difficult than it used to be but we are trying really hard to get there.
73, Tony AA2TX AMSAT VP Engineering