Warning! My opinion follows:
Many of the pacsats were university sats built for missions similar to today's cubesats. GO-32, the Korean ones, the University of Surrey ones, Tiuansat, etc. They operated in the amateur bands, and were generally open access to the store and forward parts, while also carrying out experiments, imaging, and training.
Somewhere along the line, things went closed. While cubes have drawn down the pool of these size and type sats being launched, they are still happening, and without amateur two-way missions. Without malice, I'm going to point to Edusat, and the Unisat series as the most visible of these in recent memory. There are others also, including from the US and Japan.
The question we should be asking ourselves is what caused this? Is it something hams did to put off the unis? Is it lack of involvement in the early phases, or just lack of interest or understanding of what we might provide such a program in return? How did we get to a point where a 25 or 50 kg satellite, using amateur frequencies, has no two way package in it? More importantly, how do we get back to the way it was before?
Note I'm not disputing these programs right to exist, just that something has changed, and it's in our self-interest to figure it out.
73, Drew KO4MA
-----Original Message-----
From: "Alan P. Biddle" APBIDDLE@UNITED.NET Sent: Jan 4, 2012 2:24 PM To: 'Chris Maness' chris@chrismaness.com, amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: What Happened to the PacSats?
Chris,
Like you, I really enjoyed the old digital birds. However, the interest in that has fallen off. AO-51 did have a very nice system, and a few other satellites have had more traditional Packet BBS capabilities. The interest just does not seem to be there, when the old satellites died, there were not replaced.
73s,
Alan WA4SCA
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Chris Maness Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 9:56 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] What Happened to the PacSats?
About 12 years ago, I was really into amateur radio satellites (the analog birds). I always wanted to try the PacSats, but I was a college student, and could not afford all of the necessary hardware. I tried to do it in software (and ended up falling in love with Linux). Now I have a good source of income, and was looking into dabbling in the PacSats, but looking at the Amsat website, it looks like none of the old birds are up. So are there any plans to restore store and forward messaging capability in future ham radio birds? Is this currently still possible and I am just missing something?
Thanks, Chris Maness KQ6UP _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. 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
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. 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