Hello Dom, You are of course right.
I have been in contact with Alan Kung regarding various aspects of HO-68 but as you correctly state, The Chinese don't seen to want to share the workload.
I went as far as offering donations to help Amsat China but was politely refused (!) ... the implication being that subscriptions would require reciprocating with 'information' - (which was NOT my intention).
I think your comments will give people a better understanding of why the orbits are not always otimum for certain times/areas.
73 John. [email protected]
CC'd to the group and the Amsat-bb for general information purposes.
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Hi John, LA2QAA
I don't agree with you because there are many and many HO-68 orbits with the satellite transponder OFF despite the elevation is very hight for South Europe and North Europe i.e. for you and for me as well for South USA and North USA
The problem is that in the above orbits HO-68 cannot be very well monitored by the only one command station in China and they prefere to switch OFF the transponder.
The pobleme is that the Chinese HO-68 should have more control stations around the the world instead of only one in China.The roule is that many control station are needed for a LEO satellites and only two or maximum tree for a HEO satellite.
Same problem arise with JAMSAT with only one control station in Japan for FO-29
AMSAT China and AMSAT Japan don't like to share the command of their satellites with AMSAT's command stations in different continents.
Conversly you should remember that in the early 1974 AMSAT had control stations for OSCAR-6 in USA ,in North Africa (Algeria) and Australia so that the satellite was continuously monitored and during all orbits it was operational.
I abandoned HO-68 for the better and reliable as well in all orbits available transponder of VO-52
73" de
i8CVS Domenico