Joe,
You are right and just to share.
QO-100 as changed completely the HAM activities in 3B8, being quite isolated in the middle of the Indian Ocean and HF going nowhere. QO-100 revived the hobby here particularly enable new modes such as ATV which was impossible before with about 4 OM’s (about 40% of the active 3B8 Ham population) on QO-100 and 2 active on ATV.
I carried many workshops on satellites in 3B8 and Reunion Is. and believe strongly that QO-100 example should be followed by the regions (R2 &R3) to have a global coverage thus 24/7 coverage and not depending of sunspots.
HEO is also a solution but we need to find a ride for same, partnering with commercial GEO’s operators to have transponders as payload is also difficult, but trying hard enough may work out positive eventually.
I am always optimistic an actually working in above direction also.
73
Jean Marc (3B8DU)
On Jul 19, 2020, at 11:31 PM, Joe Leikhim via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
K4SAT here.
I am intrigued about QO-100 and have monitored it here in Florida by remote WEB SDR access. I have not been active in the years since AO-40 failed and have been eager to see some HEO operations like I enjoyed from AO-10 and AO-13. Listening to QO-100 has rekindled that interest.
Last month on AMSAT-BB I posed the question about getting a GEO ride share with a commercial satellite, something that was considered 12 years ago with Intelsat. Having a QO-100 type transponder here CONUS would grow the hobby and get folks like me active again (and contributing sums as I did for AO-40). However, the "old guard" shot my idea down for the usual reasons. (See my threads last month).
Having a QO-100 type transponder with a hybrid of narrow band linear side and wide band digital side would open up a lot of opportunities for operations, public service and experimentation. I hope the new "slate" of BOD will consider this type of project as a priority.
Personally, I think GOLF has not achieved results fast enough to getting us a larger footprint. I am not advocating scrapping of that effort, but sometimes you have to jump ahead of the project and grab what is needed.
73 Joe
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