No worries here John. You'll have to do much better to offend me ;-). My earlier message was terse only because I was on the way out the door headed to work.

As far as Phase 5 goes, personally, I think it is a project with lofty goals, but one that lies outside of the stated mission of AMSAT-NA. Phase 3E is however within our mission statement, which is why AMSAT-NA has supported them monetarily two years in a row (along with AMSAT-UK).

For those AMSAT-NA members (or non-members) who support P3E first, have you contributed your P3E earmarked donation yet? You can contribute either directly to AMSAT-DL (with no tax benefit), or to AMSAT-NA with the tax-benefit. You can also donate funds for Eagle, ARISS, Phase 4, or Education at the AMSAT-NA site. Just go here:

http://www.amsat-na.com/donation.php

or

http://www.amsat-dl.org//index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=125

In order for any of these projects to fly, we all have to support them as individuals by donating our time and money. Everyone has to help bring in new members (including joining themselves!), spread the word on our projects and goals, and in general promote AMSAT whenever you can.

73, Drew KO4MA

Drew:

Point taken. I have seen it on the AMSAT-DL website. One can only wonder why.

As a VP of AMSAT-NA, what are your feelings about it? I'm not trying to be a trouble-maker. I'm sure any of these projects has valuable technical merit. It just seems as though a satellite organization would place an emphasis on building satellites to communicate.

If I offended you, I apologize whole-heartedly.

John KB2HSH

-- _______________________________

John Marranca, Jr PBX Technician/Shop Steward CWA Local 1122 BN Systems, Inc Orchard Park, NY (716)972-2006 _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. 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