Hello AMSATs,
As we all know OSCAR is the abbreviatie of Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio. To my opinion the function of OSCAR satellites is to facilitate communication between amateur radio stations using amateur radio frequencies and/or do experiments on those radio frequencies.
Can someone tell me how it is possible that many of the newer small satellites get a license to use ham radio satellite frequencies for only broadcasting data ? Many of these satellite missions are even not ham related, and those satellites only have a broadcast (downlink) radio onboard. Is this nowadays seen as amateur radio communication ?
The word "Education" I read in many of the university CubeSat projects. Doing experiments on ham radio frequencies is like education, and I fully support this even when it is only available as a downlink at a CubeSat. When it comes to the education of building a satellite, with no ham related experiments, and where the amateur frequencies and the amateur community is used to collect only none ham payload data, I don't see this as a ham satellite. Then a 433MHz remote control toy-car should also be named a ham radio. We just ask one of those ISS astronauts to throw this toy-car out of the space station and we have another amateur satellite :o)
I just wonder where is the border between an OSCAR and a satellite that uses ham radio frequencies for downloading its (none ham) payload data ?
73 de PE1RAH, William Leijenaar