Gang:

If you want to get a really warm feeling about our hobby and get excited about the potential for projects like Kiwi-sat and Eagle, which still face the uphill climb of fund-raising, you owe it to yourself to look at the Columbus L/S antenna donations page at: http://www.ariss-eu.org/donations.htm

I'm blown away by the generosity of some familiar names on that list, people who are willing to make three- and four-figure (at least in $CAN or $US :-) donations to the effort. I also love some of the unexpected names, such as the ISS Fan Club, which, as far as I know, is just a fantastic website with no real budget to speak of.

Until recently, Columbus was scheduled for launch in Oct./Nov. 2007, on STS-122. I assume the recent shuttle damage is pushing that timeline back a bit. ) So in a little over a year's time, you can look forward to reading about video-link school contacts and know that we amateurs made it happen. Not to mention the most high-profile and cool use of our sometimes-beleaguered s-band allocation.

Furthermore, I bet the link budget on this set-up is going to be rich indeed, what with the power available onboard ISS and the patch antennas: a well-made patch might just do the job on downlink. In that case, it would be possible to send the appropriate antennas *by mail* to remote schools in places like the Canadian Arctic. All that would be needed is a couple of local hams with all-band radios and a can-do attitude.

The article at http://www.ariss-eu.org/columbus.htm mentions that this installation will allow "continuous transponder operation". Does anyone know if this means the old U/V setup will be set in transponder mode after L/S stuff is in place, or is there a plan for a default transponder on the L/S side when it is not running ATV contacts?

This project, P3E, SSETI: 2008 is going to be a great year for AMSATs, no?

One last thought: it would be great if there were a way for Canadian donors to receive a tax credit for gifts such as these, especially the upcoming large efforts like Eagle. Has anyone looked into this?

73, Bruce VE9QRP