Re: [amsat-bb] Update: Rent GEO bandwidth for US
You're asking the wrong person, Sancho (lol). I was restating Michelle's potentially very exciting opportunity using different words to see if I understood it.
Let's wait on her reply. I haven't seen it yet.
Ev
On Thursday, August 22, 2019, 7:29:09 AM EDT, John Kludt via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Ev,
But the aggregator can't uplink directly to the satellite as the uplink is outside of the amateur bands. So the aggregator must send everything to an earth station with a commercial license, correct?
Would the aggregator be single channel or work more like a linear transponder sending along multiple signals in mixed modes at once?
Unless I am wrong, the aggregator must be colocated with the commercial earth station or we are back into Internet required land thereby decreasing the encomm utility of this effort.
Sancho
Sent from my Verizon Motorola Smartphone On Aug 21, 2019 22:34, Ev Tupis via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Hi Michelle, What a fascinating opportunity. I'd like to try to describe this using different words to see if I get it. Echostar 9 is a geosynchronous satellite with 1 MHz of spectrum to sell. Both the up and down frequencies are outside of the amateur bands. To use it, an aggregator is needed. An aggregator is a "bridge" device that converts amateur-band RF to satellite uplink RF and setellite downlink RF to amateur-band RF. Amateurs simply need to be in range of an aggregator. It is the aggregators responsibility to remain aimed at the satellite.
The aggregator determines if it will bridge FM or Linear (SSB, CW, PSK31, etc.) modes. Is this right? Regards,Ev, W2EV
On Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 9:38:12 PM EDT, Michelle Thompson via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
An arrangement on Echostar9 for 1MHz of bandwidth for up to 4 years of USA+Mexico+Canada coverage is on offer for $2000 a month.
I'm putting together a grant proposal for ARRL, FEMA, and others to pay for at least year of access. I've gotten some positive feedback already. I think we can make this happen with some fundraising effort. I'm willing to provide the human resources and whatever incidental financing needs to happen to secure a grant for rental.
The main purpose of this type of system would be to enable field deployment of "legacy mode" aggregators, like the Phase 4 Ground ARAP (Amateur Radio Access Point). This is where traffic on any ham band, using FM or analog gear, is digitized by a local "collecting" repeater, and is then sent to a satellite from that repeater. FEMA and ARRL have expressed a lot of interest and support for this in the past. Phase 4 Ground needs an ARAP in order to support legacy radios.
You don't have to personally have a microwave digital uplink. The aggregator equipment does that part for you.
This is most useful for public service and emergency communications. A communications emergency is declared, someone (FEMA, Red Cross, motivated ham volunteer) drops in the aggregator, and all ham traffic it hears is sent to the satellite and then transmitted to the entire footprint.
The downlink is 12-14GHz. This is not 10GHz, but is receivable by individuals using very inexpensive gear. Traffic can be repeated over the internet.
What does this get us?
An opportunity to do all the R&D for the aggregator and get some experience with uplinks.
What do we not have?
A true ham band downlink. You can still receive the downlink yourself, or you can get it over the internet from an earth station distributor.
That's where we're at with *this* proposal.
I think it's worth it to provide a US-based way to design, deploy, test, and use real world aggregator equipment. We learn a lot about GEO comms and figure out a lot of the ins and outs.
Comment and critique welcome and encouraged.
More soon! -Michelle W5NYV _______________________________________________ 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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb _______________________________________________ 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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
_______________________________________________ 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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Many excellent questions and comments!
I wanted to get the update out before I left for desert camping. I’ll be offline until 3rd September.
Uplink Requirements from Echostar have been outlined to me, but detailed discussions on how independent we can get have not yet been held. Worst case it’s their modem in an aggregator, multiple uplinks would have to been carefully coordinated (or scheduled).
Good opportunity for some dynamic spectrum sharing or automation work.
It may be clunky starting out but “gets the job done”; then we identify improvements and implement them.
This is indeed much more restrictive than the ham-only 4B (Virginia Tech, they have renewed their search for a launch) and Phase 4 Space (ORI, in development and actively fundraising). But, this is a relatively inexpensive way to test and learn a lot of new things.
We have 4 years until end of life of Echostar9. That is more than the guaranteed mission time for WFOV ended up being at the end of that rideshare offer. For an order of magnitude less money.
If there is a serious show stopper in here somewhere, then we fully document and move on. There’s lots going on out there and you never know when an opportunity might pop up. Huge thanks needs to go to the positive and proactive ham that found this opportunity and pursued it. Doug Phelps deserves the credit here.
I’m just here to remove roadblocks.
More in September! Very much looking forward to autumn.
-Michelle W5NYV
On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 04:43 Ev Tupis via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
You're asking the wrong person, Sancho (lol). I was restating Michelle's potentially very exciting opportunity using different words to see if I understood it.
Let's wait on her reply. I haven't seen it yet.
Ev
On Thursday, August 22, 2019, 7:29:09 AM EDT, John Kludt via AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
Ev,
But the aggregator can't uplink directly to the satellite as the uplink is outside of the amateur bands. So the aggregator must send everything to an earth station with a commercial license, correct?
Would the aggregator be single channel or work more like a linear transponder sending along multiple signals in mixed modes at once?
Unless I am wrong, the aggregator must be colocated with the commercial earth station or we are back into Internet required land thereby decreasing the encomm utility of this effort.
Sancho
Sent from my Verizon Motorola Smartphone On Aug 21, 2019 22:34, Ev Tupis via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
Hi Michelle, What a fascinating opportunity. I'd like to try to describe this using
different words to see if I get it.
Echostar 9 is a geosynchronous satellite with 1 MHz of spectrum to sell. Both the up and down frequencies are outside of the amateur bands. To use it, an aggregator is needed. An aggregator is a "bridge" device
that converts amateur-band RF to satellite uplink RF and setellite downlink RF to amateur-band RF.
Amateurs simply need to be in range of an aggregator. It is the
aggregators responsibility to remain aimed at the satellite.
The aggregator determines if it will bridge FM or Linear (SSB, CW,
PSK31, etc.) modes.
Is this right? Regards,Ev, W2EV
On Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 9:38:12 PM EDT, Michelle Thompson viaAMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
An arrangement on Echostar9 for 1MHz of bandwidth for up to 4 years of USA+Mexico+Canada coverage is on offer for $2000 a month.
I'm putting together a grant proposal for ARRL, FEMA, and others to pay
for
at least year of access. I've gotten some positive feedback already. I think we can make this happen with some fundraising effort. I'm willing
to
provide the human resources and whatever incidental financing needs to happen to secure a grant for rental.
The main purpose of this type of system would be to enable field
deployment
of "legacy mode" aggregators, like the Phase 4 Ground ARAP (Amateur Radio Access Point). This is where traffic on any ham band, using FM or analog gear, is digitized by a local "collecting" repeater, and is then sent to
a
satellite from that repeater. FEMA and ARRL have expressed a lot of interest and support for this in the past. Phase 4 Ground needs an ARAP
in
order to support legacy radios.
You don't have to personally have a microwave digital uplink. The aggregator equipment does that part for you.
This is most useful for public service and emergency communications. A communications emergency is declared, someone (FEMA, Red Cross, motivated ham volunteer) drops in the aggregator, and all ham traffic it hears is sent to the satellite and then transmitted to the entire footprint.
The downlink is 12-14GHz. This is not 10GHz, but is receivable by individuals using very inexpensive gear. Traffic can be repeated over the internet.
What does this get us?
An opportunity to do all the R&D for the aggregator and get some
experience
with uplinks.
What do we not have?
A true ham band downlink. You can still receive the downlink yourself, or you can get it over the internet from an earth station distributor.
That's where we're at with *this* proposal.
I think it's worth it to provide a US-based way to design, deploy, test, and use real world aggregator equipment. We learn a lot about GEO comms
and
figure out a lot of the ins and outs.
Comment and critique welcome and encouraged.
More soon! -Michelle W5NYV _______________________________________________ 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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
On 2019-08-22 07:36, Michelle Thompson via AMSAT-BB wrote:
Uplink Requirements from Echostar have been outlined to me, but detailed discussions on how independent we can get have not yet been held. Worst case it’s their modem in an aggregator, multiple uplinks would have to been carefully coordinated (or scheduled).
I've done some thinking on this, and I don't think it is something that Amateur Radio funds should be spent on. Others have made similar arguments, and here are mine.
This is indeed much more restrictive than the ham-only 4B (Virginia Tech, they have renewed their search for a launch) and Phase 4 Space (ORI, in development and actively fundraising). But, this is a relatively inexpensive way to test and learn a lot of new things.
I don't see that the Amateur Radio community learns anything from this exercise that couldn't be done with a ground-based system on our own bands. There is no Doppler correction to be done, and path loss can be simulated with attenuation and/or lower power operation. Most of the link is hidden from the operator, and the underlying information encoding is ridiculously complex, far more than is required for a KISS EMCOMM system.
We have 4 years until end of life of Echostar9. That is more than the guaranteed mission time for WFOV ended up being at the end of that rideshare offer. For an order of magnitude less money.
But how could that $96,000, over 4 years, benefit the AMSAT mission of Greater Orbit Larger Footprint? I think quite a bit, but I'm biased:
De-orbit devices, required for the GOLF missions, are expensive, and testing facility fees need to be paid before launch. How about research into amateur-developed cold gas or hybrid oxidizer thrusters?
Development of a complementary ground "package" which could get prospective new satellite operators on the air for (pick a number -- I'm guessing < $200). Might not be a contest station, but would provide the early success to kindle interest in this aspect of the hobby.
If there is a serious show stopper in here somewhere, then we fully document and move on.
As others have noted, we are now a stop-gap in EMCOMM. We have plenty of 1st responders in our current society, but education and learning the technology has fallen by the wayside. Before long, no-one will know how to make the machines work anymore.[1] If we want to keep Amateur Radio relevant, we should focus on an under-served area that was part of our founding principles:
"(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts."
We're sorely lacking in these areas, as evidenced by the plethora of new licensees who only know how to press the PTT on an FM rig. Real knowledge takes an investment of time and mentoring from those who have gone before. I do not see that your proposal encourages a new ham to build a microwave antenna, develop receivers and transmitters for our sparsely-used microwave bands, or debug why they can't hear or be heard on an amateur bird.
Sincerely,
--- Zach N0ZGO
[1] ST:TOS "The Cage"
On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 1:57 PM Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
I do not see that your proposal encourages a new ham to build a microwave antenna, develop receivers and transmitters for our sparsely-used microwave bands, or debug why they can't hear or be heard on an amateur bird.
The downlink might not be on our microwave bands, but it is microwave and receivable by hams and thus would encourage people to build microwave antennas.
FWIW I don't think new hams would be served well to try to operate microwave sats right off the bat unless they have a lot of existing relevant technical knowledge/skill or at least determination and patience.
73, John Brier KG4AKV
I think a lot of what we (AMSAT-NA) would learn from this has nothing to do with the specific radio technology, but rather in understanding a bit more in how to work within the GEO community. This applies even if we never actually sign an agreement.
The days of just focusing on tinkering on stuff on your workbench are long gone. The reality is that anything done in space is more in getting into the right relationships, and navigating the extensive regulatory landscape, than it is on building the transponder, IHU, battery management, etc.
Just my $.02...
Greg KO6TH
Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB wrote:
I don't see that the Amateur Radio community learns anything from this exercise that couldn't be done with a ground-based system on our own bands. There is no Doppler correction to be done, and path loss can be simulated with attenuation and/or lower power operation. Most of the link is hidden from the operator, and the underlying information encoding is ridiculously complex, far more than is required for a KISS EMCOMM system.
Hey Michelle,
................................................ On Thursday, August 22, 2019, 8:36:29 AM EDT, Michelle Thompson mountain.michelle@gmail.com wrote: ... the ham-only 4B (Virginia Tech, they have renewed their search for a launch) and Phase 4 Space (ORI, in development and actively fundraising)....................................................................................... Does Va. Tech have this "under control" or would they like some "6-degrees of separation" help? Ev, W2EV
participants (5)
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Ev Tupis -
Greg D -
John Brier -
Michelle Thompson -
Zach Metzinger