I regret to inform the Eagle group that at Juan's request, he is no
longer in the Eagle project and is not available to work on AMSAT
projects and has even gone so far as to resign, not renew, or not get
an AMSAT membership.
I really do regret this. I tried, almost at the expense of another
friendship, to make this work. But in the end Juan had an agenda that
was inconsistent with AMSAT's, and he was VERY critical of AMSAT without
being proactive in helping with corrective actions. His agenda moved to
taking on the entire development of the Intelsat payload by
professionals in the Bay area and with a seven figure number as the
cost. It moved steadily from volunteers to employment. When I asked
for the CV of the people he wanted to involve, it lead to a an
explosion and quitting as the request of CV's from people he wanted me
to pay millions was an insult. I was supposed to take his word to come
to a meeting where they would tell me what we should do. I just could
not go down the path he wanted. I want to remind everyone here of an
explosion that Juan mounted last year. I suggested that we might need
to begin outsourcing some work. He exploded and said that it was
inconsistent with AMSAT work. Now, he leaves because he wanted to do
exactly that and views all my attempts to get information as some kind
of insult or invasion of territory.
I hope you all know that we never like to lose volunteers for any reason
if it can be helped and if any of you remember my awards at Pittsburgh,
you know I singled Juan out for "MVP" for 2007. This was done in
conjunction with Jim Sanford. Juan did us a lot of good in 2007 and I
wish this could have worked out. My apologies to the group for this
disruption and I accept blame and responsibility for this loss but I
just could not go forward.
I will directly work with John to work out arrangements for finishing
the rework of the 70 cm receiver. As a result of our very successful
relationship with Juan, I have many questions that Jan King, Karl
Meinzer, and many others in this list completely missed in the review.
It would be easy to see looking at the group that did the review how one
might get complacent.
I have a plan to move the RX forward. I will be asking the individual I
wish to involve this week.
Bob