Just from the outside looking in...
AMSAT APPEARS only to be interested in hoisting flying repeaters and PACSAT/APRS and showing the average ham how "easy" it is to work sats with a handheld and a simple antenna. I guess that's all well and good but I didn't get in the sat end of the hobby for "easy". I wanted a new challenge. I was too late for A0-40 because of lack of funds for a station but I did have fun for awhile chasing AO-51, FO-29, AO-7 etc. with a TS-2000X and a homebrew rotator and antenna system. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I needed family funds so the Kenwood hit Ebay and I'm inactive on the birds now. I sometimes consider buying a couple of Baofengs (you should ALWAYS operate full duplex but that's another thread) and getting back in on the cheap, I even recently bought a beat up old telescope with a computer tracking tripod system I spotted at Goodwill, but honestly, the challenge isn't there to give me motivation.
Before everyone flames me, as I said, this is from the outside looking in and just one man's opinion. I really wish AMSAT would do something, anything, to change my perception. Seems to me I saw something about a YL running for the board who's interested in open sourcing stuff. Her candidate statement was IMHO, a much needed breath of fresh air but I'm no longer a member and don't keep up so no idea if she got elected. If AMSAT wants my membership and donation dollars back, they need to change perception and I suspect there are many out here in the community who feel the way I do.
73,
Michael, W4HIJ
Somewhere in AMSAT there is someone who has "Project Managed" long enough (or has access to process-flow diagrams) and can publish a generic work breakdown of both the steps and resources needed to put a highly elliptical (presumably less expensive) or Geostationary (presumably more expensive) bird into orbit and manage it.
If that person (or people) could publish that along with a "checkmark" next to the items that are "already in place", "in active progress", and "needs sponsor/enthusiast" then we are more likely to fill-in the gaps.
Remember the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game (a.k.a. "Bacon's Law")? Let's play it out here! Ev, W2EV
On Tuesday, July 30, 2019, 6:15:19 PM EDT, Jerry Buxton via AMSAT-BB <[email protected]> wrote:
On 7/28/2019 18:46, Ev Tupis via AMSAT-BB wrote:
What are the top barriers to revisiting highly elliptical and AO-40 type