I guess I am fortunate, I just came to satellite radio about 15 months ago, I missed out on the HEO's and all of the great "Good Old Days" of satellite radio, but in those short 15 months that I have been on the satellites I have some how managed to work 669 grid squares, confirm 581 of them (and Yuri still owes me 40), I have worked all 50 states on the satellites, I managed to work all but 1 of the Canadian provinces, worked 11 European countries, 8 or so Central American countries and 5 South American countries. While this may not seem like anything to the people that had the opportunity to make use of the HEO satellites, it has been a hell of a lot of fun for me.
In the last week I have had no less than 2 contacts with stations that I was their 1st satellite contact.
I may not agree with how things are being handled with AMSAT, I damn sure can't get enough information to suit me but I am not going to quit operating the satellites until there ain't nothing to work up there.
And by the way, I worked all of my contacts with 2 M2 terrestrial antennas set at a fixed elevation of about 20 degrees and they are mounted on a Glen Martin 8' Tower on my back deck.
One thing for certain if you get off the satellites you have for sure made your last satellite contact, Heck with all the "beeping" & "booping" birds that are going up all that will be needed is a bunch of SWL's to listen to the telemetry!
WORK 'EM TIL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY! That's my humble opinion! Everyone have a nice day K4FEG
way to go Frank!...you've made a good start <grin> 73 Bob W7LRD
----- Original Message ----- From: "K4FEG" [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2012 3:55:15 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Satellites
I guess I am fortunate, I just came to satellite radio about 15 months ago, I missed out on the HEO's and all of the great "Good Old Days" of satellite radio, but in those short 15 months that I have been on the satellites I have some how managed to work 669 grid squares, confirm 581 of them (and Yuri still owes me 40), I have worked all 50 states on the satellites, I managed to work all but 1 of the Canadian provinces, worked 11 European countries, 8 or so Central American countries and 5 South American countries. While this may not seem like anything to the people that had the opportunity to make use of the HEO satellites, it has been a hell of a lot of fun for me.
In the last week I have had no less than 2 contacts with stations that I was their 1st satellite contact.
I may not agree with how things are being handled with AMSAT, I damn sure can't get enough information to suit me but I am not going to quit operating the satellites until there ain't nothing to work up there.
And by the way, I worked all of my contacts with 2 M2 terrestrial antennas set at a fixed elevation of about 20 degrees and they are mounted on a Glen Martin 8' Tower on my back deck.
One thing for certain if you get off the satellites you have for sure made your last satellite contact, Heck with all the "beeping" & "booping" birds that are going up all that will be needed is a bunch of SWL's to listen to the telemetry!
WORK 'EM TIL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY! That's my humble opinion! Everyone have a nice day K4FEG _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. 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
On 09/22/2012 06:55 PM, K4FEG wrote:
WORK 'EM TIL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY!
Absolutely!
When I was active on satellite, we had multiple, digital, store 'n' forward PacSats, each with several simultaneous uplink frequencies. We had single-channel FM birds operating at LEO so people could work them with HTs. We had LEO and HEO birds with linear transponders with pass-bands 100k wide or more. You could QSO with Russian Robots. You could work Mode-A, -B, -J, -L and -S. Even, as I did a few times, B/S (no BS!). Some of these birds would come up over the hill and hang there in the sky for 4, 6, maybe even 8 hours at a time. There were birds with communications ranges of more than 15,000 Km.
Over and above the communications capabilities, most satellites were also experimental platforms of some sort or another. Testing memory error correction software. Testing tantalum and brass shielding for delicate circuitry. Running beacons at extremely high frequencies.
All of this TWENTY years ago.
Nowadays... what? We have a handful of single-channel FM birds, and a handful of linear transponders, all at LEO. The youngest of these is seven years old. The remainder are all in double-digits, with La Grande Dame an incredible THIRTY EIGHT years old!
Ok, so forgive me if I suffer from OFS (Old Fart Syndrome) which occasionally causes a droplet to fall from my eye. But it is embarrassing to consider how much PROGRESS we've made in the last twenty years.
The amateur satellite community were the first to try lots of new launch technology, and to bear the risk of those tests. Those technologies now earn millions for the launch providers every year, but we don't earn a cent and we certainly don't rate even the occasional free ride. We have no friends in those launch providers. We have no friends in NASA, apparently. We have no friends in government. We have nothing much, really.
Except we have a spectrum allocation. One that every Tom, Dick and Harry seems to want to use. Yet we can't leverage this into anything of any particular value to us? Year after year, launch after launch, we hear about educational Yawn-Sats with "amateur payloads" that are really the satellite operators running telemetry and telecommand on OUR frequencies and giving nothing back in return. How that continues to happen, I can't even begin to guess. If it were up to a dummy like me there would be NO MORE LAUNCHES using amateur frequencies, unless they carried a GENUINE amateur payload as part of the flight hardware. (Or at least made a fat donation to a launch-fund, but that's probably illegal.) Thank goodness there are smarter people out there who wouldn't make the sort of mistake I would! Because allowing them to use our frequencies entirely for their own purposes, year after year, is hailed as the best and only way forward.
So yes, my friend. Work 'em while they're there! Because it sure don't look like we are going to get any more. And even if we do, don't expect to get anything even REMOTELY as advanced as we used to have, two decades ago. Nowadays, ker-chunking a flying repeater is the absolute height of satellite sophistication!
Sorry, gotta go. Droplets are leaking from my eyes again.
I'm grateful to the old curmudgeons who show up here often. Keeping the concept of MEO/HEO L/S band alive is essential. My AO-40 sobsob) gear is in moth balls, just waiting. Yep, Work 'em till they fall out of the sky! 73 Bob W7LRD
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gus 8P6SM" [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2012 7:21:06 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Satellites
On 09/22/2012 06:55 PM, K4FEG wrote:
WORK 'EM TIL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY!
Absolutely!
When I was active on satellite, we had multiple, digital, store 'n' forward PacSats, each with several simultaneous uplink frequencies. We had single-channel FM birds operating at LEO so people could work them with HTs. We had LEO and HEO birds with linear transponders with pass-bands 100k wide or more. You could QSO with Russian Robots. You could work Mode-A, -B, -J, -L and -S. Even, as I did a few times, B/S (no BS!). Some of these birds would come up over the hill and hang there in the sky for 4, 6, maybe even 8 hours at a time. There were birds with communications ranges of more than 15,000 Km.
Over and above the communications capabilities, most satellites were also experimental platforms of some sort or another. Testing memory error correction software. Testing tantalum and brass shielding for delicate circuitry. Running beacons at extremely high frequencies.
All of this TWENTY years ago.
Nowadays... what? We have a handful of single-channel FM birds, and a handful of linear transponders, all at LEO. The youngest of these is seven years old. The remainder are all in double-digits, with La Grande Dame an incredible THIRTY EIGHT years old!
Ok, so forgive me if I suffer from OFS (Old Fart Syndrome) which occasionally causes a droplet to fall from my eye. But it is embarrassing to consider how much PROGRESS we've made in the last twenty years.
The amateur satellite community were the first to try lots of new launch technology, and to bear the risk of those tests. Those technologies now earn millions for the launch providers every year, but we don't earn a cent and we certainly don't rate even the occasional free ride. We have no friends in those launch providers. We have no friends in NASA, apparently. We have no friends in government. We have nothing much, really.
Except we have a spectrum allocation. One that every Tom, Dick and Harry seems to want to use. Yet we can't leverage this into anything of any particular value to us? Year after year, launch after launch, we hear about educational Yawn-Sats with "amateur payloads" that are really the satellite operators running telemetry and telecommand on OUR frequencies and giving nothing back in return. How that continues to happen, I can't even begin to guess. If it were up to a dummy like me there would be NO MORE LAUNCHES using amateur frequencies, unless they carried a GENUINE amateur payload as part of the flight hardware. (Or at least made a fat donation to a launch-fund, but that's probably illegal.) Thank goodness there are smarter people out there who wouldn't make the sort of mistake I would! Because allowing them to use our frequencies entirely for their own purposes, year after year, is hailed as the best and only way forward.
So yes, my friend. Work 'em while they're there! Because it sure don't look like we are going to get any more. And even if we do, don't expect to get anything even REMOTELY as advanced as we used to have, two decades ago. Nowadays, ker-chunking a flying repeater is the absolute height of satellite sophistication!
Sorry, gotta go. Droplets are leaking from my eyes again.
I gotta say, I JUST LOVE FRANK'S COMMENTS !!!!!!!!!!!!
First, I applaud Frank's accomplishments in such a short time frame. I kind of took the same track 2 years ago and managed to get my VUCC, and then seem to have slowed, but have a renewed interest in using the existing sats remaining. No moping and crying about what was and what may not happen in the future. Just use what is there.
I do not belong to AMSAT and will not in the near future. AMSAT reminds me a lot of the 'Limousine Liberals' in a particular political party. They bitch and moan about what suits their particular agenda and fail to recognize the positive or take steps to 'fix' the practicable. It is quit possible that there will be NO workable amateur sats in the future, but whining about AO40 and 'cube sats' is not productive.
73, Ted, K7TRK
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of K4FEG Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2012 3:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] Satellites
I guess I am fortunate, I just came to satellite radio about 15 months ago, I missed out on the HEO's and all of the great "Good Old Days" of satellite radio, but in those short 15 months that I have been on the satellites I have some how managed to work 669 grid squares, confirm 581 of them (and Yuri still owes me 40), I have worked all 50 states on the satellites, I managed to work all but 1 of the Canadian provinces, worked 11 European countries, 8 or so Central American countries and 5 South American countries. While this may not seem like anything to the people that had the opportunity to make use of the HEO satellites, it has been a hell of a lot of fun for me.
In the last week I have had no less than 2 contacts with stations that I was their 1st satellite contact.
I may not agree with how things are being handled with AMSAT, I damn sure can't get enough information to suit me but I am not going to quit operating the satellites until there ain't nothing to work up there.
And by the way, I worked all of my contacts with 2 M2 terrestrial antennas set at a fixed elevation of about 20 degrees and they are mounted on a Glen Martin 8' Tower on my back deck.
One thing for certain if you get off the satellites you have for sure made your last satellite contact, Heck with all the "beeping" & "booping" birds that are going up all that will be needed is a bunch of SWL's to listen to the telemetry!
WORK 'EM TIL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY! That's my humble opinion! Everyone have a nice day K4FEG _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. 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
participants (4)
-
Bob- W7LRD -
Gus 8P6SM -
K4FEG -
Ted