On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 4:34 AM, David Johnson[email protected] wrote:
Hi Joanne,
It has been a great weekend at the colloquium meeting old friends, making new ones and watching really interesting presentations. From a personal point of view, it has been a pleasure to prepare the programme of speakers for over 7 years but this was my last time and the committee is looking for someone to pick up the reigns.
The FUNCube project announcement kept a closely guarded secret before the event and we've been very pleased with the feedback and educational outreach ideas we've had just this weekend. As with all AMSAT projects any offers of help would be very welcome.
Congratulations to all involved in making this announcement! I wonder if we might discuss some educational outreach ideas here on the amsat-bb.
I've often thought that a project like this could be used to 'seed' radio clubs in local schools. My experience suggests that these could be touted as 'Space Communicator Clubs', not specifically ham radio clubs. They would concentrate, in the first instance, on the many interesting things that can be done with reception, not transmission, thus keeping the threshold for participation low enough that large numbers of students would participate.
I think a cubesat project could really aid in making these 'Space Communicator Clubs' more vital. First, if the idea is proposed on a website in some sort of formal way, it gives the local satellite operator an 'in' with the school administration. Principals and vice-Principals will be more happy to support something like this if they think that it is happening around the world. In fact, they might feel a bit of an obligation to keep up with other schools. (The problem I can see with their assistance is that we might need to pass cables to the out-of-doors.) Second, a cubesat project could help by offering a certificate of participation to all students involved in the construction of a station that receives telemetry.
In any case, I'd like to request that any sort of ancillary educational opportunities for FUNsat be presented not as for UK students alone , but that it encourages educators and students from all over the world. I think, in fact, the very distance to the UK from New Brunswick, Canada would make recognition from an organization in the UK all the more exciting to administrators and students here.
73, Bruce VE9QRP
It was good to see Drew and Peter this year and get an update of the AMSAT-NA & AMSAT-DL activities, respectively.
73
Dave
The committee JoAnne Maenpaa wrote:
Hello David, and everyone,
AMSAT-UK has announced a new amateur satellite project - FUNcube ... received major initial funding from the Radio Communications Foundation (RCF)
First, congratulations to AMSAT-UK on your exciting new project!
This is an excellent example of the premise that AMSAT needs to create a mission that excites possible funding sources ... with a positive side effect that Amateur Radio gets to use a new linear transponder in orbit.
Well done!
73 de JoAnne K9JKM [email protected]