You raise an interesting point and something I've wondered about for some time now.
IF the sat operators are always so bent out of shape when someone actually uses the sats, then why the heck does AMSAT promote a parallel Field Day event with ARRL's Field Day??
I think it's about time for AMSAT to have their OWN Field Day Event ON A SEPARATE WEEKEND!!!
That way the "serious" sat operators can play all they want on their linear birds and leave the FM sats for the ARRL Field Day participants. Then AMSAT can have it's own Field Day (or SAT DAY) with it's own rules, like a 100 pt bonus for working 2 or more qso's on a linear bird or a 200 pt deduction for working an FM bird, etc.
73,
Jeff Moore -- KE7ACY CN94 Shields Up!
----- Original Message ----- From: "Diane Bruce" db@db.net Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: FD Mess
I know I am going to get hate mail again. I just know it. But here goes. I've been quietly suggesting that we should _not_ be encouraging sat use during field day, furthermore we probably should consider turning them off during field day to stop this.
Now hear me out before you hit that reply key. Field day operators are interested in those bonus points, we (amsat) are interested in promoting amateur radio sat operations. How many of these field day operations actually result in new satellite operators? Where are the surveys, stats? Does the extra massive battery use of our sats justify the PR? Keep in mind the state of AO-51 and FO-29.
Am I the only one? I'd be interested in a non-flame war discussion.
- 73 Diane VA3DB