[amsat-bb] Re: Increasing range from LEO/SpaceX/APRS

[John B. Stephensen]

The sporadic thing about amateur satellites is free launch opportunuities. 
If hams were paying customers launches would be repeatable. Cubesats provide 
the standard form factor that fits many launchers and costs are less than 1% 
of a HEO launch.

73,

John
KD6OZH

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rocky Jones" <orbitjet at hotmail.com>
To: <lucleblanc6 at videotron.ca>; "Amsat BB" <amsat-bb at amsat.org>
Cc: <eu-amsat at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 01:41 UTC
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Increasing range from LEO/SpaceX/APRS


>
> Luc...I would add this.
>
> What is firmly missing in the amateur satellite effort is something 
> "repeatable" that encourages solid commercial gear to be available to 
> people who want to use the sats.
>
> Wayne Green (w2nsd who I think is still with us)...had some pretty "wild" 
> stuff in the startup of the repeater movement...but he also had some 
> pretty good musings about what it would take to take the repeater movement 
> from the "techies" to "ordinary" hams...  He came and spoke to us while I 
> was in college and we had a chance to have some "one on one" and he more 
> or less nailed what it was going to take to get the repeater movement 
> "mainstream".
>
> It is going to take about the same thing for hamsats...and one of those is 
> a continued supply of hamsats which encourage more communicating and less 
> experimenting....
>
> Thats what is intriguing about the SpaceX "launch" campaign...and indeed 
> about the entire changes that are occurring now with the Augustine 
> commission there is a chance for things developing like geo synch "rafts" 
> where very large satellite complexes etc are built.  But ham radio will 
> not in my view have a seat at that table unless and until there is some 
> "normalcy" in the mode.
>
> I spent part of the afternoon talking with a condo owner on Clear Lake 
> about the Club moving its APRS/voice machine to the top of his 14 story 
> building (a virtual skyscraper in this part of Houston)...it was amazing 
> how fast he came around, all he could think of was what went on in 
> Hurricane Ike.
>
> Robert WB5MZO
>
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