On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 4:34 AM, David Johnsondave@g4dpz.me.uk wrote:

Hi Joanne,

It has been a great weekend at the colloquium meeting old friends, making new ones and watching really interesting presentations. From a personal point of view, it has been a pleasure to prepare the programme of speakers for over 7 years but this was my last time and the committee is looking for someone to pick up the reigns.

The FUNCube project announcement kept a closely guarded secret before the event and we've been very pleased with the feedback and educational outreach ideas we've had just this weekend. As with all AMSAT projects any offers of help would be very welcome.

Congratulations to all involved in making this announcement! I wonder if we might discuss some educational outreach ideas here on the amsat-bb.

I've often thought that a project like this could be used to 'seed' radio clubs in local schools. My experience suggests that these could be touted as 'Space Communicator Clubs', not specifically ham radio clubs. They would concentrate, in the first instance, on the many interesting things that can be done with reception, not transmission, thus keeping the threshold for participation low enough that large numbers of students would participate.

I think a cubesat project could really aid in making these 'Space Communicator Clubs' more vital. First, if the idea is proposed on a website in some sort of formal way, it gives the local satellite operator an 'in' with the school administration. Principals and vice-Principals will be more happy to support something like this if they think that it is happening around the world. In fact, they might feel a bit of an obligation to keep up with other schools. (The problem I can see with their assistance is that we might need to pass cables to the out-of-doors.) Second, a cubesat project could help by offering a certificate of participation to all students involved in the construction of a station that receives telemetry.

In any case, I'd like to request that any sort of ancillary educational opportunities for FUNsat be presented not as for UK students alone , but that it encourages educators and students from all over the world. I think, in fact, the very distance to the UK from New Brunswick, Canada would make recognition from an organization in the UK all the more exciting to administrators and students here.

73, Bruce VE9QRP

It was good to see Drew and Peter this year and get an update of the AMSAT-NA & AMSAT-DL activities, respectively.

73

Dave

The committee JoAnne Maenpaa wrote:

...

Hello David, and everyone,

...

AMSAT-UK has announced a new amateur satellite project - FUNcube ... received major initial funding from the Radio Communications Foundation (RCF)

First, congratulations to AMSAT-UK on your exciting new project!

This is an excellent example of the premise that AMSAT needs to create a mission that excites possible funding sources ... with a positive side effect that Amateur Radio gets to use a new linear transponder in orbit.

Well done!

73 de JoAnne K9JKM k9jkm@amsat.org

I think it's already there - a SDR soft-rock receiver, pre-amp probably needed but cost ~$100 if you build yourself.

A few lines of code and you're in business.

Simon Brown, HB9DRV www.ham-radio-deluxe.com

----- Original Message ----- From: "john heath" g7hia@btinternet.com

With potential worldwide participation by schools in the telemetry and physiscs experiments I hope that amsat-uk can come up with a receiver that can be mass produced and achive an easily affordable unit for schools.

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 1:51 PM, john heathg7hia@btinternet.com wrote:

Hi Bruce and the bb,

Re: Amsat-UK FUNcube

What a great name  "Space Communicators Club"

With potential worldwide participation by schools in the telemetry and physiscs experiments I hope that amsat-uk can come up with a receiver that can be mass produced and  achive an easily affordable unit for schools.

73 John G7HIA

That's a great idea, John. And, as Simon points out, the softrock arena shows this to be quite achievable. Moreover, the one thing that just about every school has in volume is old computers!

I think if AMSAT-UK came up with such a receiver design, the rest of us should work together on a curriculum that builds soldering skills and explains radio and orbital mechanics, or on localizing the curricula that they produce. Of course, we would want this to be win-win: ideally, a telemetry collection system like the one provided with Delfi C3 would be part of the system.

I must have had the AMSAT award in my mind when I thought of 'Space Communicators' Club' as the possible name for a club in a local school, but the namespace collision was not intentional, of course. What I mean to express is the idea that students would be aiming towards receiving information from space.

73 Bruce, VE9QRP