Regarding the newest GEO. Once the GEO bird is in position and functioning, we just fix our antennas to one spot, no doppler, no hunting the satellite down, no planning for the next access time, or direction, no experimenting with hardware or various antenna systems, no ongoing challenge. I got into satellites many years ago because of the hunting, because of the difficulty and challenge. This is the ultimate “easy sat”. If one wants the easy sat this is your baby. Yes once established one can “work” lots of dx somewhat analogous to a phone call. A highly elliptical orbit (AO40 sob sob) makes one actually work, learn, experiment, and yes have fun. My opinion will no doubt be different from others. No flames please, just a discussion.
Based on some of the other threads about this satellite, it seems like there is lots of opportunity for experimenting with transmitters, receivers, and antennas.
I think if you are interested in some activity you can always find something about that activity that can be your next challenge.
Steve AI9IN
On 2018-11-17 17:17, Bob- W7LRD wrote:
Regarding the newest GEO. Once the GEO bird is in position and functioning, we just fix our antennas to one spot, no doppler, no hunting the satellite down, no planning for the next access time, or direction, no experimenting with hardware or various antenna systems, no ongoing challenge. I got into satellites many years ago because of the hunting, because of the difficulty and challenge. This is the ultimate "easy sat". If one wants the easy sat this is your baby. Yes once established one can "work" lots of dx somewhat analogous to a phone call. A highly elliptical orbit (AO40 sob sob) makes one actually work, learn, experiment, and yes have fun. My opinion will no doubt be different from others. No flames please, just a discussion.
Bob,
Not to worry — there will be no shortage of difficulty and challenge working Es’hail 2 from 7-land ... or 2-land ... or all of North America! :)
73, Mike
Michael Styne K2MTS mstyne@k2mts.org
On Nov 17, 2018, at 17:17, Bob- W7LRD w7lrd@comcast.net wrote:
I got into satellites many years ago because of the hunting, because of the difficulty and challenge.
On 11/17/18 16:17, Bob- W7LRD wrote:
no experimenting with hardware or various antenna systems,
Hello Bob,
I think the challenge will be finding the most economical and portable setup for the everyday ham.
For example: How can you take a cheap LNB and alter the printed microstrip filters for a lower frequency? How can that be done repeatably by someone who doesn't have a shack full of test equipment?
I occasionally make it to France and Belgium, so I'll have a chance to work it if I can work out something portable. Perhaps a collapsible foil dish?
Lots of fun times ahead, even if you aren't correcting Doppler or swinging antennas around!
--- Zach N0ZGO
Hi Bob,
Yes once established one can “work” lots of dx somewhat analogous to a phone call.
I'd guess that "DX Phone Call" would use up about 3 KHz of a 10 MHz pipe. How about full-duplex DVB-S video QSOs ... a box to receive that mode is about $30 on AliBaba's emporiums.
All that bandwidth is looking for real-time or recorded amateur radio services. Weekly video nets ... all those ham youtube videos ... we could do a weekly ham radio cooking show like "JoAnne's Half Baked Ideas" ... you get the idea.
A portable GEO satellite terminal in a disaster zone with video and enough bandwidth to deliver internet protocol services to the responders would be priceless.
We could go nuts!
-- 73 de JoAnne K9JKM k9jkm@amsat.org
Personally for me, just imagining the reward of putting together a station required for this would be huge. It is not as trivial as buying an Arrow antenna for your HT, even if you don't have to worry about doppler, or tracking it.
Even if someone makes a ready built station they are still going to have to learn about the sat, aiming the antennas right, etc. It will probably be expensive too. I doubt it will interest most hams.
I imagine all kinds of new ham culture/community will emerge on a tranponder that is available 24/7.
Maybe it will get more people into sats too. All hams will hear about it and I bet many will see the stations of the one or two hams in their area who have stations for it and learn and get excited about sats in general.
73, John Brier KG4AKV
On Sat, Nov 17, 2018, 18:46 JoAnne K9JKM <joanne.k9jkm@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Bob,
Yes once established one can “work” lots of dx somewhat analogous to a phone call.
I'd guess that "DX Phone Call" would use up about 3 KHz of a 10 MHz pipe. How about full-duplex DVB-S video QSOs ... a box to receive that mode is about $30 on AliBaba's emporiums.
All that bandwidth is looking for real-time or recorded amateur radio services. Weekly video nets ... all those ham youtube videos ... we could do a weekly ham radio cooking show like "JoAnne's Half Baked Ideas" ... you get the idea.
A portable GEO satellite terminal in a disaster zone with video and enough bandwidth to deliver internet protocol services to the responders would be priceless.
We could go nuts!
-- 73 de JoAnne K9JKM k9jkm@amsat.org
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Once you get your station setup you will be in a position to help the local EOC's get up and running. Then it will be just another band to work DXCC on. But, I think the public service aspect will keep everyone busy enough :-)
73 Jeff kb2m
-----Original Message----- From: Bob- W7LRD Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 5:17 PM To: amsat-bb Subject: [amsat-bb] an opinion
Regarding the newest GEO. Once the GEO bird is in position and functioning, we just fix our antennas to one spot, no doppler, no hunting the satellite down, no planning for the next access time, or direction, no experimenting with hardware or various antenna systems, no ongoing challenge. I got into satellites many years ago because of the hunting, because of the difficulty and challenge. This is the ultimate “easy sat”. If one wants the easy sat this is your baby. Yes once established one can “work” lots of dx somewhat analogous to a phone call. A highly elliptical orbit (AO40 sob sob) makes one actually work, learn, experiment, and yes have fun. My opinion will no doubt be different from others. No flames please, just a discussion. _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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Hi Bob,
You Wrote:
Regarding the newest GEO. Once the GEO bird is in position and functioning, we just fix our antennas to one spot, no doppler, no hunting the satellite down, no planning for the next access time, or direction, no experimenting with hardware or various antenna systems, no ongoing challenge. I got into satellites many years ago because of the hunting, because of the difficulty and challenge. This is the ultimate “easy sat”. If one wants the easy sat this is your baby. Yes once established one can “work” lots of dx somewhat analogous to a phone call. A highly elliptical orbit (AO40 sob sob) makes one actually work, learn, experiment, and yes have fun. My opinion will no doubt be different from others. No flames please, just a discussion.
Oh I think I can assure you that there will be plenty of experimentation going on - I have a number of things that I intend to try such as:
1) Ranging Experiments - Yes, a spacecraft in GEO *does* move - It does a figure of eight around it's orbital slot. Can we track and measure that ? (no you won't need to move your dish).
2) Techniques to track the beacons to then adjust your up/downlink frequency should folks not have highly accurate LNBs and GPSDO's
3) How small a system will still successfully uplink on each transponder ?
4) The EMCOMMS side of things has massive implications, both from a coverage perspective, and getting pictures/video
5) New mode and protocol research becomes much easier, as you can develop the RX part as well as the TX part over a realistic RF path without needing other like minded amateurs within Terrestrial RF range
73s
Iain
participants (8)
-
Bob- W7LRD -
Iain Young,G7III -
JoAnne K9JKM -
John Brier -
kb2mjeff＠att.net -
Michael Styne -
skristof＠etczone.com -
Zach Metzinger