Hi Clayton / Alan

Since the original launch of the store and forward satellites - Was it the mid 1980s? -we've had all sorts of terrestrial methods of doing the same thing. E-mail, texting, social media etc. All have depleted interest. Arissat has (sorry...had...sob..) some very innovative technologies and the digital voice announcements were particularly effective. Personally, in an era of limited communication range from LEOs, I would really like to see some experimental stored and forwarded voice messages. For example, Imagine a 'transponder' that would allow 30 seconds of voice recording over the mid-west USA combined with a command to allow the satellite to transmit that message in 20 minutes time when it's over Europe. Sounds difficult, but a CTCSS tone or DTMF could be used to tell the satellite what delay was required before retransmission. I'm not sure the ARRL would like the idea issuing worked all continents awards for a QSO that takes 3 hours to complete, but it would be fun.

73

David G0MRF

In a message dated 04/01/2012 21:08:55 GMT Standard Time, [email protected] writes:

I've been wondering if the issue is not lack of interest but lack of education and marketing. If newer hams were to see and understand the benefits of a store-and-forward PacSat, I believe you'd see a level of support as strong as days passed. I have been playing with terrestrial packet and digital modes for 20 years and the thought of exchanging messages via satellite excites me. Unfortunately I did not partake in the PacSats' capabilities when they were functional.

73 Clayton W5PFG

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 1:24 PM, Alan P. Biddle [email protected] wrote:

Chris,

Like you, I really enjoyed the old digital birds. However, the interest

in

that has fallen off. AO-51 did have a very nice system, and a few other satellites have had more traditional Packet BBS capabilities. The

interest

just does not seem to be there, when the old satellites died, there were

not

replaced.

73s,

Alan WA4SCA

-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Maness Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 9:56 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] What Happened to the PacSats?

About 12 years ago, I was really into amateur radio satellites (the analog birds). I always wanted to try the PacSats, but I was a college student, and could not afford all of the necessary hardware. I tried to do it in software (and ended up falling in love with Linux). Now I have a good source of income, and was looking into dabbling in the PacSats, but looking at the Amsat website, it looks like none of the old birds are up. So are there any plans to restore store and forward messaging capability in future ham radio birds? Is this currently still possible and I am just missing something?

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program!

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_______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb