Michael,
I also miss the HEO days, and have no interest in juggling multiple radios and antennas in the dark in the rain, simply to scream my callsign and gridsquare into the pileup and consider it an achievement if I can copy someone else doing the same. I don't suppose we will ever see another HEO hamsat, unless someone with real money gets bitten by the bug. I assure you, if I had a spare 10 megabux laying around, I'd pay for a launch... but I don't and so I can't.
I like to ragchew. Even on HF, I like to talk to people around the world, to find out what type of car they drive, what their dog is called, what is their favourite beer, etc. I've been ridiculed for saying that I want to ragchew rather than simply exchange grids.
Now, some people actually like waving a broomstick beam around, and some people are thrilled to have worked X-hundred gridsquares with people who they know nothing about. More power to them! But for me, these things are not exciting nor fulfilling. I want to sit in the comfort of my shack, and ragchew. And I certainly think I deserve as much consideration as the grid-chaser with the handheld beam.
Fortunately, we seem to be getting more SSB capable equipment going aloft, with more useable bandwidth. So I'm even considering the expenditure of some hard-earned gelt to put a satellite station on the air. As soon as I am comfortable spending the money.
As for hamfest demos, I have no problem with a show of operating with absolute basic gear, like the HTs and handheld beams. It seems to me, however, that a demo of a PRACTICAL minimalist station might also be in order. (I don't consider all that juggling to be practical, other than for proving a point.) A modest multiband radio of some sort, a small, affordable rotator perhaps controlled via bluetooth, from an android phone or tablet (which also does orbit prediction/tracking), and an antenna designed for satellite work, but with less than 22 elements on V and 40 on U. Some of this equipment may still be awaiting development.
And if we are never again going to get a HEO satellite in space with a visible window of several hours, then we need a lot of LEOs instead, so I can switch from bird to bird and continue ragchewing!
I'll probably get slagged off for making some of these remarks, so I may as well get hung for a sheep as for a lamb: I don't know why people refer to certain satellites as amateur satellites when all they do is send telemetry in the ham band(s). As far as I'm concerned, if you can't have a QSO through it, it isn't an amateur satellite. If you don't require a ham license to use it, then it isn't one of ours!
Regards to all,
On 01/26/2014 07:32 PM, Michael wrote:
I think we should be striving for something more than trying to show everyone how "easy" it is to operate sats. Again, if you actually enjoy juggling an antenna , HT and a speaker mic with only two hands then more power to you. I think that's too much like work and would much rather operate from the comfort of my shack but even if I were going to operate out on my back deck, I'd rather do it with a small table and a laptop and a tripod with a small motorized tracking system controlling the antenna.