Mr. Guimont,
I take exception to your comments about AO-51 and its relative merits. I am a newcomer to the amateur satellites - having been totally off the air for more than 15 years. I was originally licensed 25 years ago.
I've submitted a paper that will be published as part of the official proceedings of the AMSAT-NA Symposium that discusses how working AO-27, AO-51 and SO-50 with a handheld station specifically addresses the elements of FCC Part 97.1, which lays out the foundation for the amateur radio service. I hope you'll have a chance to read it.
I am in the process of getting a full station together to start working the CW/SSB satellites, but if those satellites and the equipment/investment they require had been where I had to start working satellites, I wouldn't have done it. A newcomer can get everything he/she needs to effectively work the three Mode-J FM satellites for about what it costs to buy an xBox 360 console and 2-3 games for it. It occurs to me that parents just might be more interested in investing that amount of money in amateur radio than in video games. That's one reason why I see these satellites and the concept of working them with handheld stations to be a great recipe for introducing newcomers to amateur radio and all it has to offer.
I see advantages to all of the satellites and all of their various modes of operation. Have you worked AO-16 recently in its "bent pipe" mode? What a hoot! I'm enjoying that a lot, and I look forward to hearing you on FO-29 in the very near future. I hope we'll have a chance to work each other there, and I hope you might reconsider your position on AO-51 and the other two Mode-J FM satellites. As you likely have seen here from posts about it, AO-27 is currently experiencing some problems and is not operating. However, SO-50 is not nearly as busy as AO-51.
One of the main points I make in the paper I've written for the Symposium is that the quick exchanges made necessary by the nature of these satellites provides great chances for operators to hone their skills at providing pertinent information in a short form during what sometimes can be chaotic (or, at least chaotic-sounding) conditions - things that I know from personal experience are very important in emergency-communications.
I suppose the excitement of working AO-51 could fade for me in time, but I doubt it.
73 to all,
Tim - N3TL AMSAT Member No. 36820 Athens, Ga. - EM84ha -------------- Original message from Dave Guimont dguimon1@san.rr.com: --------------
Where is everyone on FO-29???
We've got from 145.900 to 146.000 on the uplink, cw or ssb, room for many, many SIMULTANEOUS QSO'S.
Why fight the mob on AO-51???...
Get Marty Davidoff's SATELLITE EXPERIMENTER'S MANUAL if you need help in understanding the procedure...
A fifth grader could do it easily...
Hi Dave, WB6LLO
I agree with you and this is why I work only FO-29 but actually for many reason you are a voice crying in the wilderness.
Unfortunate, but true, Dom...AMSAT-NA made such a big promotion of AO-51, supposedly promote interest in hamsats and increase membership, and I think it did just the opposite...
I've asked many times how many members we acquired, never got an answer so assume it was zero, nada, nil.....
And part of the loss was also many former ssb/cw users that just gave up because of lack of bandspread...
I tried to hold a conversation when 51 was first launched, and was berated severely for making a couple of short sentences!!
What good is it if no intelligence is transferred??
One could swap grid squares on a cell phone, if that is the only interest!!
GO P3E!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pulling for P3E...
73" de
i8CVS Domenico
73, Dave, WB6LLO dguimon1@san.rr.com
Disagree: I learn....
Pulling for P3E...
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