On Tuesday 11 November 2008 19:39:33 Mark VandeWettering wrote:
It's really easy. All you have to do is say something like this:
If the COMPASS team is looking for someone (or more) radioamateurs all around the world in assisting with command and telemetry using our amateur ground stations built using our amateur money in my opinion the COMPASS-1 scientific organization should donate contributions to AMSAT in order to buid our communication satellites.
You, Domenico, are a jackass. An embarrassment. A black eye to the greater ham community, and the spirit of exploration, learning and cooperation that is required by our activity. If you can't help, or don't want to help, that's perfectly fine. You can stew in your own bile as much as you like. Some of us (indeed I suspect most of us) aren't so mean spirited as you, and would find it a great pleasure to donate our efforts to help our kindred spirits in their orbital endeavors without extracting the pound of pecuniary flesh that you seem to require.
Sadly, my own station is probably of limited utility to DK3WN and the COMPASS-1 team. Here's hoping that someone with the right technical expertise and more importantly, the proper amateur spirit to step up and provide help for the COMPASS-1 team.
Mark VandeWettering KF6KYI
That was amazingly uncalled for--I daresay that you have more in common with equus asinus than Domenico does.
Domenico is one of those posters whose contributions to this mailing list are good enough to keep, for further education and help down the road. He is most certainly not an embarrassment, given his time and knowledge to the ham community.
So he has taken a position that obviously you do not agree with. Fine-- explain WHY you think he is wrong. Logic and reason, tact and poise will keep the signal to noise ratio high in this discussion, and lower the heat to light ratio, which is currently sorely out of balance.
--STeve Andre' wb8wsf en82