Rubbish! I built my own antennae from wood and welding rod, cut my own phasing lines and built a computer from scraps to run the tracker software. I did have an AZ-EL motor set from the 80s but it had to have the controller rebuilt and the case crack repaired. My old radio FT726 doesn't have computer control so I am building a softrock SDR station with transverters for 2m and 70cm and my goal is to have it track and adjust for doppler while I make contacts whilst I am busy during a 7-10 min LEO pass.

So far I have learned about Yagi antenna design, transmission line theory and practice, Smith charts (impedance and admittance), software defined radio theory, full duplex SDR radios and multi-user transponders, so if that's what you call throwing technology at the problem then color me guilty

and PO.d at your comment.

73,

Tom K5VOU

On 10/18/2012 10:00 AM, amsat-bb-request@amsat.org wrote:

Message: 2 Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:38:36 +0100 From: Gordon JC Pearcegordonjcp@gjcp.net To:amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: OH2AUE P3E transponder demo video Message-ID:507F255C.9030008@gjcp.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

<snip> In any case, the challenge has changed. I don't see any real challenge in the "hard sats", because the "hard sat" brigade all seem to use massive aerial arrays, with computer-controlled steering and tuning. I don't see what's "hard" about it - it's just throwing technology and no real skill at the problem. Once you've figured out the mysteries of the crappy proprietary software that people use to steer the aerials and tune the rig, it's point-and-shoot. The FM sats can be worked with something as simple as a dual-band handie and a homebrew crossband pair of Yagis - and a great deal of operator skill. No, the challenge today is this - are you ready? The challenge is: Get something flying, for less than the GDP of a small nation. There, I've said it. It's down to money. You know what else I'm going to say? There is almost certainly never going to be another amateur HEO satellite. There, I've said *that*, too. Want to know why? Because we're a tightfisted bunch and no-one is going to fly us for very nearly free. The HEO crowd have some amazing technology, but it's going to cost a fortune - a very large fortune - to fly these Death Star-sized satellites *at all*, never mind into HEO. The future is small satellites, where we will have to cram as much radio into a tiny cubesat payload as we can. Even then it's going to be expensive, so we're going to need to look at countries that are developing their space programme to get launches - and that's going to be India, Pakistan, Iran if they get their shit together, maybe Israel if we can get them interested in anything other than "observation" satellites and probably one or two others. Maybe some wealthyish African countries will get in on it, like the DRC or Kenya. We're going to have to try coming up with clever satellites, rather than flying a bent-pipe box the size of a fridge. No-one is going to want to lift that, without us paying full price.

-- Gordon JC Pearce MM0YEQ