Regarding 6, the VHF Ericsson is expected to be swapped back in by the middle of April:
https://twitter.com/RF2Space/status/847840747562835968
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 3:23 PM, Zach Leffke zleffke@vt.edu wrote:
- Ground networks. Currently a lot of igates are out there monitoring UHF
bands for ISS (since the 2m radio failure and switch to UHF). Would be superrrrrrrr sweet if those stayed up and running to monitor the hops for this constellation. However, it is likely going to be a year or more before the first launch opportunity (we turned down a chance for this August, way to soon for us). We are still pretty early in the evolution of this project, so its possible ISS issues could be rectified (replacement installed), they switch back to 2m, and the UHF igates go bye bye. So maybe there will be a follow up request in a year or so to knock the dust off those raspberry pis and RTL-SDRs and stick em back outside. We'll see.....Fantastic idea....
73, John Brier KG4AKV