... the success rate of the present configuration is not good. If you're not doing a scheduled voice school contact then you're out in the cold.
I'd say the glass is nearly half full! Can you believe it?! We have a ham radio station on the ISS that gets used by astronauts to talk to schools! Can you believe it. At $10,000,000 per hour, its nice that NASA supports us. I'd be very happy if my employer let me have some time to play radio once every couple of weeks or so... But nobody is going to force my wife to do DX, and I would not expect an astronaut with other interests to do it either!
Don't get mislead.
It is an extremely tedious path to get something on the ISS, and there are no shortcuts. Yes, we may have gotten lucky a few times through the back door via the Russians, but that time is long past. I've been through the process of getting something on the Shuttle and ISS 3 times, and no amount of hutzpa or love-of-radio is going to get anything past an army of bureaucrats who's job it is to make sure that there are NO SHORTCUTS when dealing with MANNED SPACE. People die... You go by the book. And the book is 6 feet thick.
It is naive to think that a little whining is going to get success, or getting hardware on ISS is like visiting the ham store and picking up a new radio...
People, the ARISS team works very hard and the last thing it needs is ankle-bitters thinking that they are going to make DX contesters out of astronauts just because they think they should. And just because we send them a new radio doesnt make them hams. I've bought my wife 30 radios in 30 years, and I'm the only one that ever uses them...
I would not get distracted by missed opportunities, if they were missed, and all the people were trying their darn'dest, then they weren't opportunities in the first place, but dreams.
And we do have dreams... we pursue them and pray for the best.. but ankle-biting accomplishes nothing in our all-volunteer hobby.
If you are not contributing, then get out of the way...
Bob, WB4APR
---- Original message ----
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:59:30 +1000 From: sarex-bounces@AMSAT.Org (on behalf of "Norm, VK3XCI" vk3xci@aanet.com.au) Subject: [sarex] Re: Fix ISS ham projects, Replace ARISS To: SAREX sarex@AMSAT.Org
All
Before I get my boots muddy and face burnt! 1...My first satellite contact was AO-7 so I've been at it a while 2...I remember AR on MIR very fondly. It worked and was dependable. 3...Packet and SSTV are my primary interests.
I must confess to some ignorance of the structure of ARISS, particularly the upper echelons, or is it all upper echelon? Whatever, the success rate of the present configuration is not good. If you're not doing a scheduled voice school contact then you're out in the cold.
Miles has detailed a very sorry tale of missed (hardware)opportunities, and if all is in fact as he has stated it is a damning indictment! It would appear that those whom we trusted to look after ALL our interests have let us down badly.
In that case I would support changes in the structure of ARISS, conditional on wringing some improvement in the status quo, rather than change for change's or ego's sake.
73 de Norm, VK3XCI Mildura, Australia The Wintersun City QF15bt.
MM wrote:
Marex
Miles Mann WF1F
Marex
wf1f@marexmg.org Aug 15,2009
Dear ARISS supporters:
I am writing to you because of the extremely poor track record that ARISS has accumulated over the past 12 years regarding ISS hardware projects.
The only way to correct the problem and fix the Amateur Radio educational program is to completely reorganization the current ARISS hardware structure.
Under the new ARISS Closed Door policy, only selected members from AMSAT-NA are allowed to participate.
This new policy has turned the once open ARISS into a closed door Monopoly controlled by the AMSAT Corporation.
Based on the current actions of ARISS and their very poor performance with in-flight hardware I would like to propose a complete reorganization of the ARISS hardware process.
Please review the enclosed information.
I look forward to discussing the proposal with you are your earliest opportunity.
Sincerely
G. Miles Mann
Much snipped, we all know what was here!
Sent via sarex@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/sarex