--- On Tue, 25/9/12, Gus 8P6SM 8p6sm@anjo.com wrote:

...

If we look at the Kickstarter site we can see satellite projects that between them have raised almost $300,000 yet the online Fundraising by the projects took just 30 days.

Pity we can't obtain funding by the same means. It isn't as if we wouldn't be able to include most of the functionality provided by these satellites as part of asecondary payload.

Hi Gus,

Yes, I think by reaching out to people we can raise significant extra funds. As you imply it's just a matter of designing a CubeSat that has an amateur radio communications transponder, which we all want, and also has room for other functionality that people outside the amateur community would be prepared to sponsor. In fact I thought the AMSAT Fox project will do exactly that.

In an earlier post you wrote:

Would it be OK for NASA to use ham frequencies for their Mars Rover project,

Yes, that is exactly what has happened, "ham frequencies" are being used on Mars. See

437 MHz - Curiosity - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Frequencies http://www.southgatearc.org/news/august2012/mars_reconnaissance_orbiter_freq...

There are no global Primary Amateur or Amateur-satellite Service allocations above 146 MHz until you get to 24 GHz. Sadly we don't own the 435 MHz band.

73 Trevor M5AKA