Jerry,
Your feelings on this are polar opposite of mine. I am literally on the edge of my seat waiting for this satellite to be pushed out. There are soo many interesting things about it, I can not comprehend how anyone could be dis-interested in it. If you're an individual (or group at a school) with an 2M HT that can Only Receive, look at what you can do:
- listen for the CW beacons - listen to the voice announcements - listen and decode the SSTV signal - listen for the telemetry signal and examine the plethora of telemetry data available
This is an amateur radio satellite with flippin cameras on it, how cool is that!!! I think having the possibility of getting a snapshot from space, using amateur radio technology is pretty cool! But then again, I have been known to get overly-excited about simple things. AMSAT engineers could have easily said "Ahhh, that's too much work... blah blah" or "Bah!! There isn't enough time..." but instead they got it done and it's on the ISS ready to go!
I would be focused on getting your station ready to use it. Or, maybe helping someone else get a station ready for it. It's all a matter of perspective. I think everyone should be excited about this, I know I am!
Joseph Armbruster
On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 2:36 AM, Clint Bradford [email protected]wrote:
... I for one have lost My interest in it. I think even with peak
performance , it will take a class "a" ground station to hear any of the formats We're expecting . Definitely not a school project . I hope it proves Me wrong .
A handheld 2M HT and a simple antenna improvement for it are all that is necessary to hear ARISSat-1 - as designed.
Definitely a school project - as schools across the planet are anticipating the deployment. Especially schools in Russia and the U.S.
AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-184 re-capped how easy it will be to monitor ARISSat-1. And if you've mis-placed or given away your February, 2011 issue of QST magazine, I have the "Getting Ready for ARISSat-1" article posted on my Web site at ...
Clint Bradford, K6LCS 909-241-7666
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