[amsat-bb] Re: Eagle and emergency traffic

[Bruce Robertson]

Quoting George Henry <ka3hsw at earthlink.net>:

> You need to go back and re-read my previous posts, because you have
> missed, 
> and mis-interpreted, several of my points...

I'm sorry if I did, George. Though I was responding to a thread you began,
I didn't mean for my comments to respond directly to yours, rather to the
general discussion on this list which has taken place over the past couple
of weeks. I appreciate your experienced perspective on the questions.

I take your point that emergency services might not like the experimental
and periodic nature of the digital mode on Eagle, but then I suppose we
might reply that we'll never get there until we experiment with it, and we
can't have continuous service before we have periodic service. My
impression is that you wisely wish us not to over-sell our abilities or
capacities. That's good advice. 

Furthermore, there appears to be good-faith disagreement as to, as you say,
"how useful any NGO would find a 256kbps data link that's only available a
few times a day." These is an important question: you do a service by
raising it, and we (or AMSAT representatives) should dispassionately
investigate it.

One further point which might be of interest. If you're intrigued by the
emergency comm. potential of the U/V messaging service on Eagle, note that
it is meant to require only an omni antenna. Those lower requirements might
increase the installed base considerably beyond the 1000 we'd been passing
around. 

73, Bruce
VE9QRP