[amsat-bb] Re: beginner question re: uplink power

[Tony Langdon]

At 05:01 AM 10/22/2008, Ben Jackson wrote:

>While this is an issue, it is often overblown (at least in the US). I
>think the solution involves education and outreach. When someone like
>this is one of the Easy Sats, I grin an bear it and then look them up on
>QRZ for an e-mail address. I send them a Hi-Ho, tell them they made it

I agree.  Many newcomers don't know how to operate on sats, and this 
is often compounded by poor receive performance on many beginners' 
stations.  On many occasions, if an offending station was within 
simplex range, I'd call them aside after the pass, and have a bit of 
a chat.  If there was another pass to follow, I'd invite them to have 
another go, focusing on receiving the downlink, and if they do hear 
the bird, giving a quick call and try their luck.  In the downtime 
between or after passes, we'd talk about things like improving 
downlink reception.  One year, while holidaying in Queensland, I had 
a whole bunch of locals using UO-14 with portable gear, after talking 
them through the process on the local repeater before the passes. 
:)  If people have a HT, I will suggest they take it outside during a 
pass and have a listen, if they don't have any suitable antennas already setup.

Almost everyone I have spoken to has gone on to make a successful 
satellite contact, after this bit of Elmering.

>in, and point them in the right direction for proper operation. If
>someone is a repeat offender, sadly the only way to deal with them is
>try not to talk to them and hope they get bored.

That's about all you can do...


><shameless_plug>
>I addressed most of these concerns in my "The Courteous Ham's Guide to
>AO-51" paper that I wrote in March. You can check it out at:
>http://www.innismir.net/article/26
></shameless_plug>

Cool.  I wrote a similar piece around 8 years ago called 
"satiquette", which addressed these issues on FM birds.   At the 
time, SO-35 was active, and that was hugely popular down here.  It 
was a lot of fun. :)  I also wrote some articles on using SO-35's 
parrot mode, which took a lot of skill to get any useable 
throughput.  The parrot (for those who don't know or recall) was 
basically a simplex store and forward repeater that worked in the 
following cycles:  <single tone> 10 second uplink slot (satellite 
receiving) <double tones> 10 second downlink slot (satellite 
transmitting).  As one could imagine, this had _massive_ hidden 
station issues, but if you did it right, you could get a QSO.  Just 
enough time to get a callsign and RST, with time for one or two 
others to do the same in the slot. :)


>As a community, the first step for fixing these problems on satellites
>should be outreach and education. More people getting into satellites is
>a good thing and we should be encouraging it. If people aren't
>"behaving" we should be the first people to offer a helping hand.

Agree.  The majority of "anti-social" behaviour is actually 
ignorance, and education goes a long way to making things work smoothly. :)

73 de VK3JED
http://vkradio.com