[amsat-bb] Re: Organised Chaos.

[Michael Tondee]

Ed,
 You're partially right in my case, I don't have first hand experience on an 
HEO but I wouldn't call myself clueless about what it's like. I've spent 
many a happy evening researching in books and surfing the web reading about 
the glory days of  AO-40 and some info on AO-13 as well. I'm slowly but 
surely trying to accquire everything I will need for P3E. It's a slow 
process on my budget but I'm getting there. No one could possibly want to 
see it launched  and to succeed anymore than I do.
 All that being said, I like the FM sats, I think they are fun and that they 
are a challenge. I don't like seeing them being criticized here and really 
don't understand why it has to happen.  I've joked about this before but 
sooner or later, there will be a model of AO-51 available, if some people 
don't like FM sats, they should  get one and throw darts at it! ;-) lol
 As far as the next HEO surviving I will say this about AO-40, I wasn't a 
member of AMSAT back then but from all my research and reading I've come to 
the conclusion that AMSAT made a serious error in judgement in building such 
a big complex satellite and "putting all their eggs in one basket" so to 
speak. Seems like we are still reeling somewhat from it's loss, even to this 
day. The money and time might have been better spent on a couple of smaller 
less complex HEO birds or one HEO and one LEO along the lines os of AO-7. Of 
course hindsight is 20-20 isn't it?
73,
Michael, W4HIJ
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Edward Cole" <kl7uw at acsalaska.net>
To: "Dave Guimont" <dguimon1 at san.rr.com>; <la2qaa at amsat.org>
Cc: <amsat-bb at amsat.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 10:05 PM
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Organised Chaos.


> Dave,
>
> It is obvious that there is a whole generation of Leo-FM sat users
> that are clueless of what ham radio on a Heo linear-tranponder is
> like.  Although it must be harder than a cell phone since so many
> cannot seem to figure out how to operate on the Leos...I would say it
> is not "much" harder than using the local repeater.
>
> I offer an analogy:  Compare all the ham radio contacts that are done
> on HF with the same number of folks trying to talk thru a single FM
> repeater!  First it cannot be done; second the attempt results in
> total chaos with "big fish" eating the little fishes!
>
> I am waiting for the next Heo and hoping it survives better than the last 
> one.
>
> 73 Ed - KL7UW
>