Hi.
Last night, the @AMSAT Twitter account apparently retweeted a notice from Drew Glasbrenner KO4MA, AMSAT's Vice President of Operations, that the normally-scheduled AO-92 mode change would not take place until this morning. I did not see this. Even though Drew's initial AO-92 announcement was retweeted by the @AMSAT Twitter account, I was not able to view it because Drew blocked my @WD9EWK Twitter account from seeing anything originating from his @glasbrenner account. Drew did this as a result of my encouraging AMSAT and ARRL to do more about the DMR hotspot interference that AMSAT reported last August, and Drew's initial weak response (only encouraging everyone to contact the hotspot operators). Drew changed his tune a couple of weeks later, encouraging everyone to contact him about DMR hotspot interference to our satellites, when he appeared on Amateur Radio Newsline:
https://www.arnewsline.org/news/2018/9/6/amateur-radio-newsline -report-2132-for-friday-september-7th-2018
The script for that edition of Newsline is at:
https://www.arnewsline.org/s/nsln2132.txt
Despite this change of tune, my Twitter account remains blocked from viewing tweets from the @glasbrenner account for the past 6 or 7 months.
This was not the first time Drew has chosen to have the @AMSAT Twitter account retweet something from his personal Twitter account, instead of using the @AMSAT Twitter account to make this sort of announcement. Drew has done this on two other occasions in the past 3 weeks for announcements on AO-92 mode changes. There have been other occasions where the @AMSAT account retweeted the AO-92 mode-change announcements from Mark Hammond N8MH. I am able to see those, but that doesn't change my opinion on how AMSAT should handle these notifications.
I know I can always go to the AMSAT web site and look at the status page for AO-92 to see the status of the satellite, including whether or not the L-band uplink is active. If AMSAT is only going to use its Twitter account to make these announcements, and not post them on the AMSAT-BB list or the AMSAT web site, these tweets from AMSAT really need to originate from the @AMSAT Twitter account. This was done earlier last week, when the @AMSAT Twitter account announced new pricing on the 2018 Getting Started books:
https://twitter.com/AMSAT/status/1108171995697606656
and the one-day sale on AMSAT T-shirts:
https://twitter.com/AMSAT/status/1108368893914030081
What Drew does with his personal Twitter account is Drew's business. It becomes an AMSAT issue when he is using his personal Twitter account to make announcements on behalf of the organization, and not everyone has access to those announcements. I have tried to address issues related to how Drew manages the @AMSAT Twitter account over the past few months with a few AMSAT officers and Board members, and have either been greeted with silence to my inquiries, contempt for daring to question AMSAT, or outright dismissal in one case. I don't have a problem with AMSAT using its Twitter account for these announcements, as long as AMSAT makes the announcements so *everyone* can see them. Otherwise, the AMSAT-BB list or the AMSAT web site may be better avenues to make announcements about the status of AMSAT's satellites that all can see.
Thank you.
Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK/VA7EWK Scottsdale, Arizona