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