[amsat-bb] Re: Phase 4

[Dave Guimont]

>
>This bird will be extremely poular among "today's crowd", and will 
>probably bring out an entirely new crop of amateurs who will enjoy 
>playing, but will avoid helping to pay the costs involved. I think 
>we should either be prepared to endure this without complaint, or 
>have a plan to deal with this opportunity to gain new paying members of AMSAT.

Enjoyed your comments, Mike....What we need of course, are "paying 
members", and their membership dues probably helps with only a part 
of the expenses involved...
What we really need are "donating members", and to get them we need 
something a little more attractive than a satellite that only 
requires them to go out an buy an HT, and push the mike button!!

I've been a club member in San Diego, North Shores ARC, and have 
given briefings to all of the other 18 clubs in San Diego at one time 
or another...When we had HEOS the effort
created some new members, some club donations, NSARC was one of the 
contributors, and general interest among quite a few operators.

The "two meter mentality" affecienados (sp?), resulted in zilch, as 
far as I know..

>I think we can expect complaints about those "high dollar" 2M and 
>440 yagis, though.

They both can be homebrewed by anyone who can use a hacksaw and tape 
measure....buy everything new, and the N connectors and the coax cost 
more than the antenna materials!

Instructions for both, with options can be found at:

http://home.san.rr.com/doguimont/uploads/

HEOS of course require pointing, but near apogee that can be done 
"armstrong" very easily,

There are plenty of used rotors around, that are relatively 
inexpensive in comparison to the price of radios required....


>It has not escaped me that there will be considerable commonality of 
>hardware between Eagle and Phase 4, so that any effort will benefit 
>both projects, and that is good.

I am sure you are right on target there, Mike, and can hardly wait 
for both to happen!!





            73, Dave wb6llo at amsat.org
                    Disagree: I learn....

               Pulling for P3E...