Hey guys and gals, AMSAT members, supporters and kibitzers reading the mail.
By now everybody had his or her say, positive or negative, it does not matter.
What matters now, is get together and work on a solution, without pointing fingers and or flaming individuals.
I for myself dropped out of AMSAT in the AO-10 days, some of you old timers might remember me. My reason for that was NOT dissatisfaction with AMSAT, the other way around. AO-10 was wonderful, gave me hours of enjoyment, and friends all over the globe, some of which I had the pleasure of meeting eyeball to eyeball.
Economics forced me to scale down, drop everything not necessary to survive, and fight for my basic existence. I barely managed not to become homeless. Now I am slowly back on my feet. Oh yes, I will re join AMSAT again. Why? That is a very good question. AO-10 is gone, and all what is left are relative low flyers and the ISS. To understand my position and yearning for HEO's, realize that I live on a very small island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That makes some satellite footprints not even large enough to reach the Continental United States from here. The ones who do, give us only a small sliver of the pie, and then you can talk to the same sat ops for a few minutes, not to say seconds. The latter one is one of the reasons why there are so few sat ops here in Hawaii!
Why did I rejoin? Number one is to help others to look at the satellite side of the hobby. It is fun, and Hawaii is a rare commodity for you mainlanders, and gives you one more sat op to chat with. Second, after getting my feet wet again (it has been many years of my hiatus) I will volunteer to become an AMSAT coordinator again.
So I paid my dues, to be back on board. As soon as I feel comfortable to "lead the heard" again, I will volunteer my services.
I hope the lot of you will do the same, support and build, do not destroy. Let's get of the soap box and do something constructive! Constructive criticism is appreciated and will lead to improvements. But there is no point in beating a dead horse!
Hope to see you on the sats!
Aloha, Peter, NH6VB AMSAT# 30992