At 12:08 PM 12/20/2007, Dave Guimont wrote:

I really don't see much of a technical challenge with a geo, but if that is the lie of the lie, so be it.

You still have to have the ERP to get into the bird, whatever mode it uses. It's not going to be a "HT special". In fact, I doubt FM would be supported on it. More likely would CW, SSB and digital (both voice and data) modes, since these are spectrally more efficient.

A cell phone has about the same degree of difficulty...

You've had to put up crossed Yagis to use your cell phone lately? ;) I certainly haven't. :D However, not having to rotate my antennas will be a major advantage. The cost and mechanical issues of rotators aren't feasible for me at this time.

And who gets the 1st third....or will all three be installed at the time??

That would be up to Intelsat I suspect....

I'd rather see one similar to AO7 or 8 with ssb/cw, and bandwidth to enable many users, rather than the dumb FM voice (2 user) bird AMSAT-NA spent all that money on...

Well, I would like to see something higher than a LEO, CW/SSB (at least when I tried on RS-12/13 a few years back) was very lonely. Everything here is so far apart that altitude is needed to get out of our backyard, so to speak. I'd also like to see Eagle up too (and work out some way of manually rotating the antennas. :)

73 de VK3JED http://vkradio.com