Hi Gus, 8P6SM
I agree with you !
Unfortunately there is now a huge trend to build more and more of these shoe boxes (CubSat) to fly around earth. I would not call them satellites, because just a box with some solar panels does not make a real satellite. As we see, most of them are almost useless, in particular for the ham satellite community to communicate and they are a waste of money and resources. It's more like a prestige object for many Universities and their Professors. What kind of science is it, to buy a ham radio hand held and modify it for use on a shoe box ? The wheels are re-invented again and again... For us AMSAT'ers.. this is something we did almost 30 years ago!!!! This is history and nothing like science anymore... Instead it would be indeed better to build a HEO with advanced capabilities, but no one seems to be interested in it... At least AMSAT-DL is working hard to get P3-E finished and launched soon, but the mass flood of these CubeSats and other Nanosats makes it indeed more difficult.
73" de
i8CVS Domenico
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gus 8P6SM" 8p6sm@anjo.com To: "Gordon JC Pearce" gordonjcp@gjcp.net Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 4:28 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: OH2AUE P3E transponder demo video
On 10/17/2012 05:38 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
We're going to have to try coming up with clever satellites, rather than flying a bent-pipe box the size of a fridge. No-one is going to want to lift that, without us paying full price.
I may not be 100% on the 'bent pipe' definition, but if it means hams 'talk' on the UP and other hams 'listens' on the DOWN, then that's what we need. Whether it be the size of a fridge of a matchbox, if ham radio operators can't use it to communicate, then it's pretty pointless. It don't matter how much telemetry it sends, how many LEDs it blinks, how clever the beacons, or what purty pictures it downlinks. If hams can't use it to QSO, then why bother?
-- 73, de Gus 8P6SM, Evil DXing ragchewer!
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