At 07:15 PM 12/4/2008, Tom Clark, K3IO wrote:
Phil Karn, KA9Q (with help from W0RPK) has been posting a complete set of AMSAT's history in posting AMSAT's Newsletters/Magazines in the 1975-1999 era at http://www.ka9q.net/newsletters.html. Many of these really bring tears to my eyes! -- especially the ORBIT and ASRs from 1980-1985. This was the era when we built Phase-3A only to have it lost as the 2nd test flight of the Arianne launcher self-destructed seconds after the launch. We took that failure as a challenge to rebuild the AMSAT organization and the replacement Phase-3B spacecraft. Anyone who would like to learn more about our legacy should read the publications from the early 80's.
There is another story in those newsletters. In the early 1980's, a few amateurs were learning about computers. The pre-1980 LEO satellites could be tracked using only the time of equator crossing and a simple plotting board. However the HEO Phase-3 satellites in elliptical orbits made the job a lot harder. In Orbit #6 (see http://www.ka9q.net/AMSAT-ORBIT-6.pdf) I started AMSAT on the "open source" software track by publishing the source code (in BASIC) for a the algorithms needed to do the job on a personally owned computer; at the time, the detractors said "Why waste all this space in the magazine. Only a few amateurs will ever own computers with enough horsepower to do these calculations!"
I held fast and we published the article anyway. In the next 5-10 years, clones and graphical adaptations of "IWI Orbits" by others for many computers were added. AMSAT's "sales" of copies of the many variants of my open-source software put nearly $100,000 into the till to build AO-10 and -13.
My thanks to Phil & Ralph for giving me the chance to reminisce one more time!
73 de Tom, K3IO (ex W3IWI) _______________________________________________ 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
I believe that was what I ran on my Commodore-64 in 1985 to track AO-10. It was the only sw I had on the computer.
*********************************************************** 73, Ed - KL7UW BP40iq, 6m - 3cm 144-EME: FT-847, mgf-1801, 4x-xp20, 185w 1296-EME: DEMI-Xvtr, 0.30 dBNF, 4.9m dish, 60W http://www.kl7uw.com AK VHF-Up Group NA Rep. for DUBUS: dubususa@hotmail.com ***********************************************************