[amsat-bb] President's Letter - June 2002

[VEFRH@xxxxxxx]

Summer is finally here and for those of us who live in the Northern States or 
Canada, it did not come any too soon. The reason that I mention summer is 
that now I can get outside in good weather and set up a portable AO-40 
station for demonstration purposes. Many of the ideas that will go into this 
station were obtained at Dayton when I was able to see many ideas and talk to 
AMSAT members from around the world. Certainly one of the many strengths of 
AMSAT is that it is an international organisation and that we can discuss 
many ideas with each other.

Dayton lives up to its billing every year and we had a very good attendance 
at the AMSAT booth with many members renewing their membership and others 
joining for the first time. One of the highlights, at least for me, was that 
several members chose to rejoin AMSAT-NA after being away for a few years.  
Another highlight was the AMSAT forum, with standing room only (over 300 
attended). The topics were an insight into Oscar-E by Rick Hambly - see your 
June /July issue of The Journal for a repeat of this information, Ed Krome 
gave an excellent review of how to work Mode S and available equipment, And 
Frank Bauer introduced Owen Garriot and Tony England, our first two 
Astronauts to work Amateur Radio from Space.
A fantastic Program well orchestrated by Vice President of Field Operations, 
Barry Baines WD4ASW and Vice President of Human Spaceflight Programs Frank 
Bauer.

I would also like to thank our new "Manager of Dayton Operations"  Ed Collins 
N8NUY  for organizing the booth assembly and takedown.    Now we are looking 
at some new ideas for next year ideas, which are dependent on finding a new 
booth space in a different  location in the Hara arena, more on this later, 
if our ideas become practical !

As most of you are aware Russ Tillman K5NRK has stepped down as the Journal 
Editor, after 7 years, this is a record for an AMSAT Journal editor. Russ has 
introduced many innovations into The Journal and on behalf of you all I thank 
Russ for his time, effort and devotion over the seven years. 
Dan James  N0DJ our ANS editor has now become the new Journal Editor  and 
with the assistance of our assistant editors will produce the July August 
issue. JoAnne Maenpaa Wb9JEJ and Harrison Faust WW4HF have volunteered to 
become co-editors on a team of 4 who will share the production of ANS.

I am still looking for 2 more co-editors who would like to join this team, 
and thereby relieve  Your President and Executive Vice President from this 
part of the operations. (we still have plenty to do on you behalf ! )

During the Summer months, work will be continuing on our two satellites, 
Oscar-E and Eagle. I understand that our Structural / Thermal engineer, Dick 
Jansson is moving ahead in the design of  Eagle and is working closely with 
the Vice President of Engineering Stan Wood, our big question here is the 
need for propulsion to achieve the right orbit, and how to do it ...... if 
necessary. Of course our preference would be not to do it.
73
Robin Haighton VE3FRH
President AMSAT-NA
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