About a week ago, Facebook alerted me that it was Tony AA2TX Monteiro's birthday. I'll admit it caught me off guard, yet it was really fun thinking about the wonderful work he did for us, AMSAT, as the "father of the Fox satellite family." He was such a neat and brilliant guy. So over the past several days I have been thinking of him, and being thankful for him. It brought back memories of a HamRadioNow.TV interview from Dayton Hamvention in 2013, where Tony was VP for Engineering, and I was the first VP for Educational Relations. This is before any of the Fox birds were built and buttoned up for launch. If you're curious, and you never had the chance to meet Tony (or even if you did!!) you might enjoy watching the video and hearing about the vision and planning; note that the interview starts about 5 mins into the recording. It was touching for me, personally.
https://www.amsat.org/hamradionow-amsat-fox-1-interview-now-online/
It took Jerry N0JY Buxton as the "new VP" and friends stepping up to fulfill Tony's vision. So I'm thankful for all of you that did all of this. Far too many to count. And the "bonus bird" Fox-1E wasn't even part of Tony's original vision...but I can't wait to have that one flown and operational "someday soon" as well!
If you work AO-91 or AO-92 this weekend, maybe you'll also be "thinking and thanking" Tony AA2TX, too!
73,
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH] AMSAT Director and Command Station