Digital signal processing is 40 year old technology at DARPA and first appeared on the amateur radio scene 20 years ago. We certainly don't want AMSAT to ignore this technology as it can reduce hardware complexity, size and power requirements and therefore decrease costs and increase reliability.
73,
John KD6OZH
----- Original Message ----- From: "Rocky Jones" orbitjet@hotmail.com To: db@db.net Cc: "Amsat BB" amsat-bb@amsat.org; k6hx@arrl.net Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 15:47 UTC Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Why do hamsats? (Or anything else...)
But a software derived transponder is not simple and if the thing fails...most likely no one will know why. Was it some astronaut missed one of those switches or is the entire program screwed? What to do with cubesat then?
AMSAT's role should be as far as possible to keep the membership supplied with functioning satellites. It is not the ham equivelent of DARPA or whatever. If the role is not to keep hamsats in orbit, then what does it do