Hi Thomas,
Great story. One thing I would like to add, you suggest Yahoo style, what about a forum on for example the amsat website?
73 from another dinosaur - Jan PE0SAT
On Wed, June 22, 2011 16:00, Thomas Doyle wrote:
The following quote from John W9EN hit home with me.
"FO-29 performs well. Its a shame I often find myself the only one on during the pass "
I am an AMSAT old timer (Amsat LM-0875) who had been inactive in ham radio for a decade or two. Recently I got back on the air. The easiest way to get back on the air was 2M/70cm repeaters. The activity level on the repeaters here in Madison is at an very low level. In the old days you could always find someone on the repeaters. I was a bit surprised to say the least.
Back in the day I worked WAS on Oscar using scratch built transverters. I thought I might give the current satellites a try. I thought my gear was not working but I guess it is the low level of activity on the sats. The same situation occurred about 65 million years ago when the few remaining dinosaurs stood around and asked themselves - where is everybody. Today "everybody" is playing Angry Birds on their iWhatever or tweeting the fact that they are up and going to have breakfast soon.
One thing that would help the satellite hobby is a more modern use of the internet for discussions. I searched for an Amsat yahoo group and could not find anything. Some sort of threaded discussion system with actual search capability like the yahoo groups would be much more useful than the current 'old school' listserv. Unfortunately the few people who read this will think I am nuts and that the current system works great - "for them". That is always the situation when something is in decline - the few remaining folks like things just fine the way they are.
73 tom W9KE
P.S. the spell checker on my email system picked the word "transverters" as misspelled. It suggested "transvestites" as a possible correct spelling. I guess I am truly a dinosaur. _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb