Re: [amsat-bb] Eimac Moonbounce - I8CVS
Phil,
Thanks for the post. Since I8CVS passed I had wanted to bring up a subject but was a bit hesitant. I8CVS had a mountain of information. He helped me with many things. It may seem a bit selfish but I regret that not only is he a SK but all that information is lost. It probably became a victim of the same 'paper eradication campaign' you described that will destroy your docs.
Some info used to wind up on pages like this. http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/softwareArchive.php#win I hope the docs you shared wind up on some "permanent" web site.
I am sure a recipe for gluten-free muffins or a youtube video of a cat wearing a dress dancing the polka would generate more interest than our old stuff from the old days but it would be a shame if it was lost.
Must run - my garden full of kale needs tending, I have an appointment at the tattoo parlor and I need to pick up a new selfie stick to replace the one I wore out.
tnx & 73 W9KE
On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 6:14 AM, Phil Karn [email protected] wrote:
Way back in 1980 when I first got interested in amateur satellites and AMSAT, I wrote off to Eimac Corporation for their "Moonbounce Notes" collection.
While on a household paper eradication campaign I came across them and scanned them. I thought others might enjoy a look back at some bleeding-edge ham activities from the mid-late 1970s. It's particularly amusing to see how much effort was spent just tracking the moon with the technology then available.
http://www.ka9q.net/moonbounce-notes
This is a raw collection of pdf files, but the file names are pretty descriptive. Collect the entire set!
If anybody has any notes missing from my collection, please let me know.
Phil _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
On 10/11/15 08:30, Thomas Doyle wrote:
Phil,
Thanks for the post. Since I8CVS passed I had wanted to bring up a subject but was a bit hesitant. I8CVS had a mountain of information. He helped me with many things. It may seem a bit selfish but I regret that not only is he a SK but all that information is lost. It probably became a victim of the same 'paper eradication campaign' you described that will destroy your docs.
I hear you. And I'm more than willing to let other people "mirror" the stuff that I scan. I'm only concerned about possible copyright issues, but if AMSAT (or whoever) doesn't care, then I'm all for it.
I occasionally hear thoughtful comments (e.g., from Vint Cerf, one of the "fathers" of TCP/IP) that we may be setting ourselves up for a digital dark ages in which our distant descendants can't figure out how we lived or what we created because they can't read our digital formats. I think that may be a *bit* too pessimistic, but it's certainly something to think about. (Ever see "Forbidden Planet"?)
Years ago I came to the conclusion that the best way to preserve digital information is to "keep it spinning", i.e., to run a server with everything online, ideally in RAID arrays, and to use it regularly so you can catch and fix problems before they become unfixable. As technology improves and/or your old equipment wears out, you copy everything over. This is much more effective than keeping stuff offline on media that may silently become unreadable either through degradation or simple obsolescence.
This was fairly easy as hard drives rapidly got more capacious (I won't say "bigger) and cheaper, but as you've probably noticed improvements seem to have slowed down over the past few years. The most recent improvements in storage density seem to be increasingly hard fought, e.g., with helium-atmosphere drives and "shingled" recording. But at least communications keeps improving, and it's not at all unreasonable for individuals to mirror large archives to each other over the Internet.
Perhaps we should make it a project to collect and digitally archive as much AMSAT and AMSAT-related information as we can and replicate it as widely as possible for safekeeping. This may require a bit of rethinking on the part of AMSAT's leadership, specifically whether it's more important to make whatever it currently makes selling books and such or to preserve all this information for posterity, because I see a bit of tension between these two goals. Personally I think AMSAT would be better off in the long run if it simply distributed all its publications online in non-DRM digital formats and relied on wider exposure and the honor system and donations for its income. At the very least, they'd save a lot of money printing and mailing paper journals and proceedings. And I wouldn't have to cut them up and scan them to keep this place from filling up.
--Phil
Hi Folks,
The dates for the next Colloquium have now been confirmed as Fri 29 Jul to Sun 31 July 2016. It will be held in the same location as in 2015, ie the Holiday Inn, Guildford, UK
73s Jim G3WGM Hon Sec AMSAT-UK
A flash back from a 3rd country....
El 12/10/15 a las 02:50, Phil Karn escribió:
Years ago I came to the conclusion that the best way to preseve digital information is to "keep it spinning"
That's what my team calls a "live repository of information", we in Cuba with almost ZERO network available have managed to create a live repository... the live example of "Keep it spinning"
A few technical oriented group of people - hamradio operators or not - have a huge doc repository (tech papers, articles, blueprints, operating/technical manuals/schematics of any type, handbooks, etc) that get mirrored as flash drives and huge USB portable HDDs. When some one have a new bunch of GBs of good info it notifies the group and the propagation of the info begins... every member has it's subject of interest, but we have manage to get at least 2 copies of the same info...
Copyrights is not an issue here at least for the moment.
A few times in the year I get request from one or more people of the group to meet and recover a few Gb of info about X subject after it's HDD collapse, even I had used this trick a few months ago with the loss of my 1TB Portable drive to recover the ~25 Gb ham/commercial radio manual/schematics folder organized by manufacturer and even the CAT/Programming soft for almost all...
Only if the info is alive and moving it will prevail and never die, CD/DVD are good for a year or two, but no more...
That's my live example of the "Keep it spinning" of Phil
73 from Cuba, CO7WT.
"Only if the info is alive and moving it will prevail and never die, CD/DVD are good for a year or two, but no more..."
Another more realistic way of looking at is "Anything that moves will break - the only unknown is exactly when it will break". Interesting things happen to hard drives when subjected to intense shock from unexpected things like earthquakes and nearby explosions.
Buy quality disks, use good quality burners and take some care where you will store them and you will have much better luck. No one says the CD/DVD's will "never die" but they will last a lot longer than a couple of years.
This CLIR study has lots of information on the subject. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4.html
Here are some suggestions on how you might get better life from your CD/DVR's. http://www.recovery-portal.com/shelf-life-of-recordable-cd-dvd-media/
I have many recordable disks that are over 10 years old and they are error free.
The only truly proven portable long term storage media is papyrus, parchment and bronze. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls
Most data on other things comes from accelerated aging studies which are little better than a shot in the dark.
73 W9KE Tom Doyle
On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 7:24 PM, M.Sc. Pavel Milanes Costa < [email protected]> wrote:
A flash back from a 3rd country....
El 12/10/15 a las 02:50, Phil Karn escribió:
Years ago I came to the conclusion that the best way to preseve digital information is to "keep it spinning"
That's what my team calls a "live repository of information", we in Cuba with almost ZERO network available have managed to create a live repository... the live example of "Keep it spinning"
A few technical oriented group of people - hamradio operators or not - have a huge doc repository (tech papers, articles, blueprints, operating/technical manuals/schematics of any type, handbooks, etc) that get mirrored as flash drives and huge USB portable HDDs. When some one have a new bunch of GBs of good info it notifies the group and the propagation of the info begins... every member has it's subject of interest, but we have manage to get at least 2 copies of the same info...
Copyrights is not an issue here at least for the moment.
A few times in the year I get request from one or more people of the group to meet and recover a few Gb of info about X subject after it's HDD collapse, even I had used this trick a few months ago with the loss of my 1TB Portable drive to recover the ~25 Gb ham/commercial radio manual/schematics folder organized by manufacturer and even the CAT/Programming soft for almost all...
Only if the info is alive and moving it will prevail and never die, CD/DVD are good for a year or two, but no more...
That's my live example of the "Keep it spinning" of Phil
73 from Cuba, CO7WT.
Sent via [email protected]. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
participants (4)
-
Jim Heck -
M.Sc. Pavel Milanes Costa -
Phil Karn -
Thomas Doyle