On 11/8/07, Robert McGwier <rwmcgwier@gmail.com> wrote:

I would like to hold a Teamspeak meeting on Monday night starting at 9
P.M. eastern time.  Between now and early December I am going to be
putting together a plan forward and I will be seeking input from many of
you.  We need to hold a meeting as soon as it is practical to hold it
and we find the appropriate venue.  My only mandatory attendance for
this particular Teamspeak session is Bob Davis and I, so if Bob cannot
make this, we will move it.

Secondly, if Jim is available, I would like for him to come and give us
his exit report if he wants to and for us to be able to let him hear
much we want him back when he finds his busy life will allow him to return.

My main agenda item for Monday night will be for us to get a report on
the activities of the AMSAT lab construction delivered by AMSAT Lab
director Bob Davis.  Ron Bettini of Hawk Space Institute is about to
deliver a request for volunteer help for some specific tasks that need
doing for Hawk to finish integration of its Cubesat. I have agreed to
try to advertise the need.  I assume Bob will be his proxy but Ron is
most welcome. AMSAT and Hawk are going to jointly administer a "space
camp" at UMES next summer if the details can be worked out (we stop
talking and start acting) and we are rapidly approaching the time when
the teachers we are trying to attract will have already made application
to others and committed their available funds.  We are going to need to
volunteer adjunct faculty from our engineering team to aid with this.
AMSAT is going to join with Hawk in a balloon project at the "spend a
few dollars and package the Suitsat hardware for the balloon" level. I
would like for Bob to fill us in on those details.
I want to get together as soon as possible a clear set of parameters for
the RF systems I intend to have us build during 2008 and for which the
AMSAT BOD has given us a budget.  I am not looking to build flight
hardware but a significant investment has been made in prototyping tools
so we can develop code for the full up HELAPS and the ACP software
foundations on the same development platform.

We need to put together a clear concept of our intended operations on
Intelsat and to get some prototype hardware built so the prototype
development system can put it all on the air and demonstrated and tested.

As soon as is practical,  we need to be able to demonstrate a prototype
ACP and a prototype SDX so we show the functionality can be built if
funding is found for the flight system and the launch.  We have not yet
reached the point where any firm decisions can be made which would allow
us to build fight RF hardware for either Eagle or Rideshare because they
are significantly different missions.  One is RF with a few space
challenges and with more DC power than we ever dreamed possible.  The
other is all the challenges of managing a complex satellite on which we
grudgingly allow what RF can be accomodated.  But I have my marching
orders from my boss,  BUILD SOMETHING.  I am prepared to demonstrate we can.

By the time I get done writing all of that up for the journal
Engineering Notebook column,  my arms will be breaking off.  Should we
have other agenda items that need to be covered, please email me
directly.  The bod and officers outside the Eagle team members are NOT
invited to this session because this has nothing to do with tech
snobbery.  There is a limit to the number of people we can get on there.
We have never reached it and I don't want to try and I want to try to
stay focused on the long reports I have requested. I am seeking your
input on things you would like to see us to discuss.  You will be able
to listen to the entire session should you so desire afterwards and we
finish transcoding it and putting it up for download.  There will be a
written report posted to Eaglepedia as soon as I figure out the levers
to pull.

Bob

--
AMSAT Director and VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL,
TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR WG Chair
"An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
must the pessimist always run to blow it out?" Descartes
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