[amsat-bb] Re: a little perspective

[Tom Schuessler]

Hi all,

I have not posted here for some months, I think since after the April
Gregarine non-event.  I expressed skepticism then on whether we would have
an ultimate successful deployment.  It is my hope that the new Board of
Directors for AMSAT will look long and hard at this situation and come away
with good lessons learned.  We gave up far too much control in the name of
International cooperation I think.

That being said, I do disagree with the ideas presented in post 16 below and
others who belittle the student satellite initiatives as "Squakboxes".  As
long as FCC or IARU or ITU or anybody else in the world's regulations about
not using Amateur Radio frequencies for "Pecuniary" gain as it says in Part
97.3 (4) of our FCC rules, (Meaning you cannot make money off of the service
or frequencies), then I have no problem with the use of amateur radio
frequencies to further education and science training.  Perhaps more of us
should be volunteering our time working with these educational institutions
developing cubesats and enlighten them on how providing real communications
capabilities to these satellites, not just telemetry, could enhance the
visibility of their projects.

73

Tom Schuessler, N5HYP
------------------------------

Message: 16
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 03:21:19 +0000
From: Jim Jerzycke <kq6ea at verizon.net>
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: a little perspective
To: Bruce Robertson <ve9qrp at gmail.com>
Cc: AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb at amsat.org>
Message-ID: <4E3A102F.5030707 at verizon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

I'm sorry, Bruce, but I'm not buying it.

It was a screw-up, plain and simple.

And we can't make lemonade out of it.

At least AO-40 had a usable life for some. This thing is just another squawk
box in space, like all the "student" satellites that are using the Amateur
Radio frequencies for a free downlink.

Jim