At 07:50 AM 11/1/2007, Don Fanning wrote:
I think that people tend to wax sentimental when a new satellite goes up that fails to meet their sense of what the hobby is. I see geosync/phase4 being a great boon for the entire amateur hobby. Not
I agree. I certainly see a lot of opportunity in a Phase 4 bird (providing there's one I can reach!). LEOs are OK to dabble in, but with the distances involved, they barely get us out of our backyard. Exotic prefixes for a LEO are VK9, P29 and 3D2, with the rest being VKs and ZLs. The rest of the neighbouring countries don't have anyone capable of even FM satellite operation (2m all mode and 70cm FM gear is not common outside of VK/ZL). Phase 3 and Phase 4 are much more interesting to us here as a result. Phase 4 could also be useful for travellers, if one can be reached using a reasonably sized surplus TV dish. This could be a nice alternative path to the "Travellers Net", especially when HF conditions are poor across the country.
only does it provide a means for us to do plug-n-play radio, but it also allows us to use parts of the spectrum that until recently have had no reason for usage. We would be able to utilize our band allocation rather than having them sit dormant risking reallocation by the FCC or other governing authority. Not having to compensate for doppler and with higher frequencies means we'll be able to fit more into what we're given and be able to "get back to our roots" instead of using the
A geosync bird with extensive microwave bandwidth could have a lot of utility in both analog and digital modes.
That being said, I think the payload that goes up on the geosync/phase4 birds should reflect not only the current but the future of radio since they'll be sitting there for the better part of 15-20 years. Let's not
Agreed, and I feel that high speed digital and SDXs should be a major part of the package. If course, analog backup for redundancy is a good idea, in case the DSPs get fried by severe radiation levels.
Any idea of where the proposed longitude locations will be and footprints? Will it be a shared antenna array? I'd love to know the engineering details of the agreement.
Guess that will have to come out later. :)
73 de VK3JED http://vkradio.com