I believe this mail ought to be forwarded to *ALL* amateur radio satellite organisations.
We've - (GM1SXX & LA2QAA) - said it often enough in the last 10 years but if we persist, somebody just might finally get the message.
Commander John Brannegan G4IHJ made us aware of the problem in 1994 ... so far, to the best of my knowledge, it's been totally ignored.
Please *DO* note the last paragraph.
73 John. la2qaa@amsat.org
John, you are so right...
If AMSAT-NA persists in it's idiotic FM voice LEO's they are certainly not helping the cause...
The money should be sent to Germany to help with P3E...I've been saying that long prior to the launch of AO-51, at a number of conventions I attended, to no avail...
I guess someone in there has a profit motive we know nothing about... The guise at the time was to encourage new members..And I would bet the membership has gone down...they will never report membership levels, and I can't imagine why that would be a secret??
The skill level with AO51 is to buy an HT, and press a button...I can't imagine that would hold anyone's interest for long...level of difficulty.... equal to a cell phone...
Hopefully, the rest of the world's AMSAT's will save the operation and interest of amateur ssb/cw BANDWIDTH SATELLITES, to enable at least several minutes of REAL COMMUNICATION, instead of the ridiculous callsign/gridsquare exchange that is occurring now...
My meager contributions are now going to AMSAT-DL, and I've been supporting Project Oscar and AMSAT-NA for 28 years...so I'm not exactly the new kid on the block!!
And it looks like US high school graduates are about the same level as other countries 9th graders...
And don't any one give me any BS about my loyalty...I was a navy fighter pilot in WWII, Korea and Vietnam before I retired in 1967..
73, Dave, WB6LLO dguimon1@san.rr.com
Disagree: I learn....
Pulling for P3E...