[amsat-bb] Re: Future scheduling of SO-67

[Tony Langdon]

At 11:34 PM 11/23/2009, Jan-Albert Koekemoer wrote:

>In an effort to make this as painless as possible, I would like to request
>comments on the possible use of regional coordinators, which I believe worked
>quite well for SO-35.  Such coordinators would then be responsible for
>setting up schedules in advance for their specific regions, taking into
>account obviously the pool of possible satellite passes, as well as local
>events / fairs etc.  We would then simply load the schedules on a weekly
>basis.

I was the VK/ZL coordinator for SO-35, and drew up the schedule for 
the region for over a year.  If I recall correctly, I was the first 
of several regional coordinators.

The arrangement worked well, and I formed a close working 
relationship with the SO-35 team.  The work wasn't particularly 
difficult, and having local knowledge, I could tweak the passes to 
suit the needs of the local satellite community.  I also helped the 
SO-35 team test different transponder configurations (some worked 
better than others), by offering feedback about how well the 
different configurations worked, using my setup of known performance.

Based on my experience, I would recommend and encourage the use of 
regional coordinators.  It's not a particularly difficult job, it 
takes the load off the satellite operators, and it provides a local 
point of contact for satellite users to request passes for special 
events, or to cover areas that were missed out.

73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com