There are "radio" considerations and then there are "traffic" considerations as well...
The odds of amateur radio getting a dedicated geo bird in the belt are next to nothing. a "drifter" (one above or below the belt) is more possible...and it is a good orbit for hamsats...Robert G. Oler WB5MZO ARRL AMSAT NARS life member
From: kb5mu@amsat.org Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:59:43 -0700 To: n2wwd@mindspring.com CC: AMSAT-BB@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Geostationary Satellites
On Oct 10, 2011, at 3:03 PM, Ken Ernandes wrote:
- There are a finite number of orbital slots at Geostationary. That is essentially like water front property.
I've heard that asserted before, but I question the reasoning.
My understanding is that spacing of satellites around the geostationary orbit is dictated by the beamwidth of the ground station antennas. In other words, it's a matter of spatial frequency sharing. The satellites have to be far enough apart that a ground station antenna can illuminate one of them without causing too much harmful interference to the ones in the adjacent slots, after all the expected errors (orbital and ground station pointing) are taken into account.
If that's correct, since amateur radio satellite operate on different frequencies from the commercial satellites, there is no conflict between amateur radio satellites and commercial satellites for orbital slots.
Where have I gone wrong?
73 -Paul kb5mu@amsat.org
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