Dan...so have amateurs...see Stensat. And "suitsat 1 and 2" were not that great success either... Sorry I dont agree with much of that statement Robert G. Oler WB5MZO Life member AMSAT ARRL NARS
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 20:13:22 -0400 From: n8fgv@usa.net To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Why should we support AMSAT?
Stefan,
I wasn't trying to diminish the students, but I have worked with a student satellite project where they literally took a chip maker's application note for a baby monitor or cordless telephone transmitter and made a satellite transmitter out of it, and it didn't work on orbit.
I appreciate the students energy and enthusiasm, but in some cases they do have much to learn about RF. I also remember how valuable my amateur radio background was to me when I was an engineering student, when some of my classmates couldn't even read the color bands on a resistor and had no idea how the theory that we were studying was applied to real world applications.
I am also concerned about whether the students are receiving the right kind of experience to prepare them for the aerospace industry. They get to make all the design decisions and direct their entire project, but when they are hired by Lockheed Martin or some other large aerospace company they will be doing mind numbing paperwork and will have little power to make engineering decisions, particularly on government contracts. I also know about this from years of experience. They also are not learning the political skills that they will need to have to survive in the corporate world, where career success depends more on how you suck up to authority than on your ability to design or build anything.
I am not diminishing the students, I love the students and want them to succeed better than I did, but I have much experience, not all of it positive, that I feel I should share with them during their formative years.
Dan
------ Original Message ------ Received: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:18:48 AM EDT From: Stefan Wagener wageners@gmail.com To: Daniel Schultz n8fgv@usa.netCc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Why should we support AMSAT?
Hi Dan,
You have some good points and your thoughts are appreciated. But why are you diminishing the students efforts by making these statements:
At least they are building, studying, learning and actually many times successfully have an operational satellite.
Thanks for reading.
Stefan, VE4NSA
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