All,
You have received carefully considered responses from three of the people who were in the fateful San Diego meeting where the revised band plan for Eagle was chosen. You also now have access to the meeting minutes and spread sheets on EaglePedia and three articles on the subject in the latest Journal. I too was at the meeting so let me say a few words.
For those of you who still disagree with the decisions we made I am sorry. Your elected volunteer Board members and the volunteer executives and volunteer Eagle team members have done their very best to design Eagle to satisfy the needs of the existing members while providing services that we hope will attract many thousands of Hams to the Amateur Satellite Service who today find us impossible or irrelevant. I congratulate all of AMSAT's dedicated volunteers on a job well done.
The band plan is simple.
a) We will provide an enhanced linear transponder for mode U/V (B) that will support traditional linear transponder modes with a performance and signal quality never before seen on a satellite. In addition, other modes may be supported, especially a new high performance SMS service for text messaging using hand held or transportable equipment even when Eagle is at apogee.
b) We will provide a modified version of C-C Rider, with the uplink on S-band, so I guess you would call it S-C Rider. It will support a full suite of services from voice and video to CW and data using a wide bandwidth digital carrier on the downlink and digitized uplink channels to maximize the link performance using the latest in coding techniques. As a side benefit, we will be transmitting on S-band so you can continue to use much of your existing S-band equipment if you like. We will be developing an open design reference ground station that will be available to buy or copy.
c) There are at least two TSFR (This-Space-For-Rent) packages that could possibly contain other RF or other payloads, conditioned on the availability of power, antenna space and compatibility with the primary payloads.
If, after considering all the information that is now available, you still feel strongly that we are doing a bad job then ask yourself not what AMSAT can do for you, but what you can do for AMSAT. If you want to have more direct influence on decisions then volunteer your time and money; run for office, join the Eagle team, join Field Operations, or one of the executive teams. At the very least have the courtesy of sending your comments directly to those who are involved so you can get informed responses. The Board meeting in San Diego is open to all members so you could express your feeling there.
Rick W2GPS AMSAT President