Quoting George Henry ka3hsw@earthlink.net:
You need to go back and re-read my previous posts, because you have missed, and mis-interpreted, several of my points...
I'm sorry if I did, George. Though I was responding to a thread you began, I didn't mean for my comments to respond directly to yours, rather to the general discussion on this list which has taken place over the past couple of weeks. I appreciate your experienced perspective on the questions.
I take your point that emergency services might not like the experimental and periodic nature of the digital mode on Eagle, but then I suppose we might reply that we'll never get there until we experiment with it, and we can't have continuous service before we have periodic service. My impression is that you wisely wish us not to over-sell our abilities or capacities. That's good advice.
Furthermore, there appears to be good-faith disagreement as to, as you say, "how useful any NGO would find a 256kbps data link that's only available a few times a day." These is an important question: you do a service by raising it, and we (or AMSAT representatives) should dispassionately investigate it.
One further point which might be of interest. If you're intrigued by the emergency comm. potential of the U/V messaging service on Eagle, note that it is meant to require only an omni antenna. Those lower requirements might increase the installed base considerably beyond the 1000 we'd been passing around.
73, Bruce VE9QRP