Hi Chris
IMHO Pacsat interest decrease at same rate internet connections increase. By early 90's, electronic messaging was something new, and not available to ordinary people, like us hams. But now we can do it almost anywhere in the world, for an infinite fraction of the price, with minimal equipment. We no longer need radios, antennas, pre-amp, az/ev rotators, trackers, PC running 24h, etc. No more need to wait for a 15 min pass, stay in queue, miss our turn, go back to the end, and wait for the the next pass for the remaining 1 kb to complete the file... Yes, it was fun (specialy to built and leave the station working unatended), but those days are over! Sorry.
73 F.Costa, CT1EAT http://ct1eat.no.sapo.pt
----- Mensagem original ----- De: "Chris Maness" chris@chrismaness.com Para: amsat-bb@amsat.org Enviado: terça-feira, 3 de Janeiro de 2012 3:55 Assunto: [amsat-bb] What Happened to the PacSats?
About 12 years ago, I was really into amateur radio satellites (the analog birds). I always wanted to try the PacSats, but I was a college student, and could not afford all of the necessary hardware. I tried to do it in software (and ended up falling in love with Linux). Now I have a good source of income, and was looking into dabbling in the PacSats, but looking at the Amsat website, it looks like none of the old birds are up. So are there any plans to restore store and forward messaging capability in future ham radio birds? Is this currently still possible and I am just missing something?
Thanks, Chris Maness KQ6UP _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb