The problem is not that it's too complicated to operate. The problem is that having a human astronaut interact with any piece of equipment has to be scheduled far in advance, through the PAO if I recall correctly. Whereas a system set up to operate autonomously or accept ground commands can be considerably more agile in its operation. There's a human error factor involved, but only because the humans in question are doing a lot of other jobs in addition to operating ham equipment and time and attention are on a very short budget.
I do agree that it's worth documenting it all in detail organized by task/procedure, that's a familiar format for the astronauts to deal with. A good model for the documentation would be the normal and emergency operations checklists for any airplane's pilot's operating handbook. :)
On May 5, 2007, at 12:55 PM, Thomas Frey wrote:
The radio might be able to be operated in packet by setting everything up manually but that is very time intensive for the crew (I'm guessing it would be about 30 steps) and it would have to be done before and after every school contact. Manually changing all those settings greatly increases the likelihood of having a school contact fail due to human error.
Kenneth - N5VHO
And how was it before the "human error" ? I'm wondering why an astronaut can not handle an amateur transceiver. If the user interface is too complicate it would be a good idea to give him a dedicated notebook so he can click in a menu for Packet, school contact, repeater, SSTV aso. If this problem is not solved, it is fruitless to discuss about new modes. My 2 cents about this theme.
"Thank you all for coming around to the self-evident point I made five minutes ago." -- Toby Ziegler