On Saturday 07 June 2008 13:24:52 i8cvs wrote:
Hi David, G0MRF
It seem to me that while the Universities are becaming tennis players we collect telemetry without to be involved in their experiments and this is like to only pick up their balls and run with it.
The only difference is that each University receive governement contributions to build the satellite while we radioamateurs invest a lot of personal money to build our own satellite stations.
Since the Radioamateur Community make a worldwide service to the Universities my idea is to collect their TLM upon official donations to be used to build our Orbiting Satellites Carrying Amateur Radio i.e. satellites with linear transponders to talk each other.
Is the Amateur Satellite Service becaming an endangered species ?
It will became an endangered species if P3-E and EAGLE will be not placed in orbit as soon as possible but this requires our contributions ............or not ?
Do you like my TLM ?............Please donate !
73" de
i8CVS Domenico
Hello Domenico,
I keep your posts in my mailbox because I find that what you and a few others say are really valuable. I've little practical experience on the satellites myself; I have nearly all the equipment, so am getting there, slowly, at least in part because of the excellent advice you and others have given here.
I'd have to say that I think I really disagree with you on this subject. I hope I can explain.
Space is a *big* place, both in terms of its physicality, and the numbers of people/entities doing things there. Currently the cubesats seem to be the pre-eminent form factor for getting up there, and its easy to see why: easier to get a ride up there, cheaper to build, in fact so cheap that "student" types can now do so, ala DO-64, et al.
These cubesats aren't like the early sats like AO-7, and they were never designed that way. I think at least some hams decry these non-traditional cubesats because of this.
I think what I'm hearing about these little creatures is great! We're getting a new generation of folks who are thinking in the sky, working on little systems now, and who knows what will come about in the future.
Their exposure to amateur radio, even if only thought of as the expedient route to get tele-command systems running quickly and cheaply, is still getting folks interested in the hobby. Ham radio has a way of sticking in folks heads--how many hams do we all know, who dropped out for years, only to get back in again? I think the work with amateur radio will pay off in the future. Think of it as an investment, with dividends yet to be known.
We longer term hams are responsible for "our" kind of transponder systems. It shouldn't be up to other entities for this. I'm still trying to get a good overall understanding of the two large projects underway, but it does seem as if squabbling among ourselves is hindering things.
But my main point here is that the cubesats have incredible potential. Getting student types interested in them and building things up is going to have a payback for us.
Me, I'd love to see so many of the little beasts racing around that demos to folks could always have a poster listing "whats next" and keep the nubies eyes wide open. ;-)
--STeve Andre' wb8wsf en82