In a message dated 16/07/2008 06:31:11 GMT Standard Time, kd6ozh@comcast.net writes:
AMSAT-NA personnel issue, but aren't concerned that AMSAT-DL announced that they can't pay for the P3E launch.
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No, the quote is that they can not afford the price given by Arianespace.
That is not the same thing. You are exagerating the facts (again)
David G0MRF
I always read with great interest when I see references to "the graying of the hobby" .When we start to talk about old hams I always wonder whose definition of old we are using. I'm 45 and I certainly don't consider myself old. I see a lot of hams my age or thereabouts at hamfest and in QST and AMSAT journal pics etc. etc.. I once worked in the retail end of amateur radio and I saw a lot of hams anywhere between 30 and 50 coming in and out of the store everyday. I also saw the stereotypical old gray haired fellas who always looked as grouchy and unhappy as they seemed. ( Funny, somehow I envision Dave G. this way. ;-) ) I guess what I'm getting at is that it's all a matter of perspective. To a teenager I guess I'm what Bob calls an old fud. To me an old Fud is one of you 65 or 70 year old retired fellas. And no, I don't think you are all old grouchy and unhappy, just some of you. 73, Michael, W4HIJ
Just as an afterthought about the FM sats that always seem to draw so much ire and drawing youth into the hobby. Say you have a young person who shows interest in the hobby, specifically satellites.Which way do you think you might have more success getting the kid motivated to get his license, show them a comparetively inexpensive Dual band HT and an Arrow antenna that is more than likely to be finacially achievable for him/her and let them listen to grid square exchanges or maybe witness the magic of APRS? Or, show them your super duper decked out sat station complete with switchable CP antennas and the latest an greatest DC to daylight rig plus your sophisticated AZ/El tracking system that, while really impressive and beautiful, is going to seem impossible to obtain for them? Then use the station with all it's technical wizardry to let them listen to some fella spend the entire pass of the SSB/CW satellite yakking about his impending hernia operation....... Think about it..... Michael
Michael Tondee wrote:
Just as an afterthought about the FM sats that always seem to draw so much ire and drawing youth into the hobby. Say you have a young person who shows interest in the hobby, specifically satellites.Which way do you think you might have more success getting the kid motivated to get his license, show them a comparetively inexpensive Dual band HT and an Arrow antenna that is more than likely to be finacially achievable for him/her and let them listen to grid square exchanges or maybe witness the magic of APRS? Or, show them your super duper decked out sat station complete with switchable CP antennas and the latest an greatest DC to daylight rig plus your sophisticated AZ/El tracking system that, while really impressive and beautiful, is going to seem impossible to obtain for them? Then use the station with all it's technical wizardry to let them listen to some fella spend the entire pass of the SSB/CW satellite yakking about his impending hernia operation....... Think about it..... Michael
Excellent point, and one that should be emphasized. We've seen lots of people bitch about FM satellites, but they are very nearly ideal for trying to get new, young hams interested in amateur satellites.
First of all, there is the cost factor. A reasonable dual band HT is an item that lots of hams can afford. You can probably get a suitable pair of single band HTs even cheaper, especially if you are shopping on the used market. Add an Arrow or any of the many homebrew equivalents, and you've got yourself a station for operating the FM birds, not just in a slap/dash manner, but in a way that works pretty darned well. Or, you could use any of a number of inexpensive FM mobile rigs, perhaps in combination with an HT. What's also cool is that these rigs aren't "single taskers": people can use them to communicate with their local communities via simplex and/or repeaters, and even use them for emergencies. Once they get their feet wet, they can move up to AO-51 via some of K5GNA's downconverters, which are awesome and reasonably priced.
Someone can argue that using used equipment, one can equip an SSB/CW station as inexpensively. First of all, there is FM equipment on the used market even more than there is used SSB/CW equipment for VHF/UHF, so if you are going to resort to that, you can also make your FM station cheaper, and probably proportionately more cheaply, since the market for FM gear is generally more competitive. Second, people who are new to the hobby are unlikely to have the expertise and the networking that more experienced hams do, and will have difficulty in finding those terrific steals that you more experienced hams seem to find with such ease. This means that the used market is relatively less useful for them, and can be frustrating for them if they end up buying overpriced or non-functional gear in an attempt to "save".
Secondly, young hams are often operate at the convenience of others. Erecting larger antennas and the like are even more difficult for them than it is for us who might just have a home owners association to deal with: they have to convince mom&dad to go to up against their home owners association. So mobile operation from small antennas is more attractive to them anyway. Mobile operation on most of the linear birds is difficult, often using 2 radios, and guided antennas and computer aided doppler tuning. Yes, you can do without all that stuff, but it's far from easy, and very intimidating. It's just too easy to make mistakes in one or more of the five things you have to do at once.
Thirdly, operating with QRP level signals is just safer. It's really pretty difficult for kids to hurt themselves with an HT. They aren't beaming several watts of microwave energy into directional antennas.
There are other good things: APRS messaging through the birds is fun. Monitoring downlinks from cubesats and from weather sats is fun, and can be done with a TH-F6A or the like. I wrote my own satellite tracking code for fun. My own satellite picture decoder for fun. Built a small yagi for 2m for fun.
Ham radio should be less of an investment of $$$ and more of an investment of one's own energy and enthusiasm.
Look at it this way: can you think of another hobby that spends as much time soul searching, trying to attract new members to its ranks. If ham radio were really fun, we couldn't keep them from joining us.
Mark
Michael,
On Jul 16, 2008, at 2:46 PM, Michael Tondee wrote:
I always read with great interest when I see references to "the graying of the hobby" .
As do I, as a 25 year old guy who grew up with a dad as a very occasional ham and who was a broadcast engineer for a living. I decided to get licensed when I was 19, after I was living on my own, on Sept. 10, 2001. I'm now 25, and living back in the San Francisco Bay Area, where, probably moreso than other locales, the ham population is nearly non-existant for folks under 40. I'm 25 now, and I live in San Francisco proper. There's zero ham community here.
When we start to talk about old hams I always wonder whose definition of old we are using. I'm 45 and I certainly don't consider myself old. I see a lot of hams my age or thereabouts at hamfest and in QST and AMSAT journal pics etc. etc.. I once worked in the retail end of amateur radio and I saw a lot of hams anywhere between 30 and 50 coming in and out of the store everyday.
How long ago? I suspect that may have changed. There's one local amateur radio shop in Oakland around here, and the staff there has frankly been somewhat cold, although not un-friendly, to the new folk who have walked into the place as I've been there.
I also saw the stereotypical old gray haired fellas who always looked as grouchy and unhappy as they seemed. ( Funny, somehow I envision Dave G. this way. ;-) ) I guess what I'm getting at is that it's all a matter of perspective. To a teenager I guess I'm what Bob calls an old fud. To me an old Fud is one of you 65 or 70 year old retired fellas. And no, I don't think you are all old grouchy and unhappy, just some of you. 73,
Having worked with and under a variety of bosses/coworkers of disparate ages, I've personally found there's a pretty strong generational/relational schism between myself and someone over ~45-50. For myself at least, this is the point at which I find it much more difficult to relate, and I suspect that's true in the inverse as well. As the ham community ages, and fresh blood becomes more scarce, I only see this getting worse. Amateur radio doesn't have to be something which predominantly sedentary 50+ year old men partake in.
The ARRL needs to do, as well as support other ARRL members who may wish to volunteer assisting with, way more outreach to folks under 40, and not simply in churches and youth groups, which I tend to read about far more than other venues.
Michael, W4HIJ
Just as an afterthought about the FM sats that always seem to draw so much ire and drawing youth into the hobby. Say you have a young person who shows interest in the hobby, specifically satellites.Which way do you think you might have more success getting the kid motivated to get his license, show them a comparetively inexpensive Dual band HT and an Arrow antenna that is more than likely to be finacially achievable for him/her and let them listen to grid square exchanges or maybe witness the magic of APRS?
I personally think FM sat would be far more attractive/sexy to a non- amateur. As a professional career systems administrator, the data modes certainly appeal to me as well, however I suspect I'm in the minority with that viewpoint.
Or, show them your super duper decked out sat station complete with switchable CP antennas and the latest an greatest DC to daylight rig plus your sophisticated AZ/El tracking system that, while really impressive and beautiful, is going to seem impossible to obtain for them? Then use the station with all it's technical wizardry to let them listen to some fella spend the entire pass of the SSB/CW satellite yakking about his impending hernia operation....... Think about it.....
Yep, there's a great book called Low Profile Amateur Radio, published by the ARRL, and authored by Al Brodgon, W1AB. The second edition is 57 pages long and cost me $20. I often lend it out to friends and associates who are interested in learning about what they can do "on the cheap" or without a pile of huge equipment. As more and more people live in urban environments across the world than ever before, the reality that we're likely to have less physical space for our prospective ham rigs is something which must be addressed and acknowledged by anyone looking to help recruit new hams. Our forefathers were far more likely to live in the 'burbs with a nice big backyard and lots of space for ones' antennas and rigs.
Regards, Alex Perez KD7OFR
Michael
In american english both mean the same thing. There's no implication of a broken promise.
My problem with some amsat-bb users is that they are complaining about transient personnel issues that have no long-term relavence to the amateur satellite program but completely ignore the big problem. I makes me wonder how much money that they have given to AMSAT-NA, AMSAT-UK or AMSAT-DL and doesn't encourage those of us who donate our time and money.
73,
John KD6OZH ----- Original Message ----- From: G0MRF@aol.com To: kd6ozh@comcast.net ; amsat-bb@AMSAT.Org Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 20:21 UTC Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: AMSAT NA
In a message dated 16/07/2008 06:31:11 GMT Standard Time, kd6ozh@comcast.net writes: AMSAT-NA personnel issue, but aren't concerned that AMSAT-DL announced that they can't pay for the P3E launch. ===================================================
No, the quote is that they can not afford the price given by Arianespace.
That is not the same thing. You are exagerating the facts (again)
David G0MRF
participants (5)
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Alex Perez -
G0MRF＠aol.com -
John B. Stephensen -
Mark VandeWettering -
Michael Tondee