[amsat-bb] Re: Post AMSAT Conf ideas

[John B. Stephensen]

What will be needed is a really cheap U/V transceiver and omni antenna for 
Eagle class 1 users. A crystal-controlled low-IF receiver and a transmitter 
consisting of an oscillator, quadrature modulator and an amplifier producing 
a few watts won't take very many ICs. The transceiver would probably be 
small enough to fit in an Altoid tin.

73,

John
KD6OZH

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Bruninga" <bruninga at usna.edu>
To: <amsat-bb at amsat.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 21:01 UTC
Subject: [amsat-bb] Post AMSAT Conf ideas


> The AMSAT conference was very refreshing.
>
> When I listen to the speakers, it often inspires me to day dream
> of neat ideas just for fun.  Here are a few that got me
> thinking:
>
> See the WEB page:
> http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/amsat-ideas.html
>
> 1) AMSAT $15 Student Receiver Kit.  Rick Hambly proposed some
> kind of cheap kit for kids to build as student outreach.  I
> suggested a simple up converter to upconvert 145.800 Space
> Station downlink to 462.5625 MHz for the FRS radios that the
> kids already have.  I'm sure we could do this for really cheap
> since the kids already have the radio...  A little device that
> wraps around the FRS antenna and has its own 19" antenna.  See
> pictures on the WEB page above.
>
> 2) Golf Ball Fundraiser:  A few years ago, there was a golf ball
> company willing to pay 100's of thousands to get a golf ball
> into space as an AD campaign.  We all know the similar SWATCH
> project was soundly killed by the amateur community because it
> was in direct violation of the rules.  But, such use of someone
> else's money to BUILD a satellite *can* be done if it is done
> within the rules.   So here is my design challenge to the
> amateur commuunity for a golf ball 10m to 2m linear satellite
> transponder for MULTI-USER PSK-31.  See:
>
> 3) The big-ear "S"band dish for local operations.  I posted this
> before and it is simply using a 1/4th quadrant of an old "C"
> band TV dish as a nice gain antenna.  In fact, save this for all
> future AMSAT EAGLE microwave links.  These dishes are good to Ku
> band and using only 1/4th of them is much more manageable and
> easier to mount.  And you only lose 12 dB from the 38 dB gain of
> a full sized one.  Thats a nice 26 dB gain antenna that people
> are throwing away.  Oh, and if you find a big dish that is
> intact, then you get four of these Quardrant antennas for one.
> And disassembling it into quadrants makes it easier to drag home
> anyway...
>
> Anyway, just some fun thoughts...
>
> de Wb4APR, Bob
>
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