On Jan 16, 2008 4:29 PM, Robert Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
Instead of complaining about what these satellites don't do, maybe getting in touch with the builders and explore ways to add features and capabilities...
A HUGE +1 to that thought! Work with these guys on their goals while providing extended missions for hams, invite them into the fraternity and treat them as brothers, not as outsiders.
And this does NOT MEAN contact them and tell them that they are not doing what YOU think Amateur Satellites SHOULD do. Its Paul's rule. Don't criticise in the slightest. Just provide help, info, resources, tools or leadership in the direction that might be where you'd like to see them end up. (if you're lucky).
Bob
Of course, even in that spirit, it could be helpful for we AMSAT'ers to discuss and concur among ourselves where we might like cubesat projects to go, and some of the easy ways they might do so. This board would make a great place to propose, imagine and reject crazy ham/cubesat applications, either as a supporting payload or as the main show.
Here's one that, Bob, I think you proprosed a while back: a HF ionosphere sounding project. Especially as the 'sphere is going to get activated by the new cycle, I'm sure there's some science to be done by pinging on 10m.
A super-simple communications idea that has bounced around my head is to get non-linear (say, AFSK FM) transmitters to operate as single-user CW transponders. It works this way: if the receiver hears a signal over a certain threshold, it triggers the transmitter. Period. You'd want decent switching time to be useful for CW ops, but I think it could be fun. It seems to me to be so simple that it could be integrated with an AFSK system with very few components. I know someone's thinking 'CW, man that's old school', but in my experience, it would make an excellent demo: there's nothing like pushing a button down here and hearing a beep from space. Nothing.
Where do we stand in SDX technology? Could we provide a cubesat sized SDX 9600 modem, receiver and transmitter that could periodically serve as a linear transponder or FM beacon, or whatever? I imagine some of the cubesat groups that have very long-lived birds might at this stage be glad to have a new mode with which to wow the world.
All of this would also suit us more if it were in higher orbit. Are the current cubesat orbits (and even the projected ones for amateur microsats) by preference or necessity, I wonder.
73, Bruce VE9QRP