[amsat-bb] Re: Montagues & Capulets (was: FM vs SSB, HEO vs LEO, etc)

[R Oler]

Hello OM

I am not sure how you got what you said from my one paragraph about 2 meter gear...but I can put you at ease in that most of what you are saying I would agree with...my point however for the "average" ham I stick by.  

We do use 10ghz here a bit...all our repeaters are controlled or cross linked by either a 3 or 13 centimeter link.  Robert WB5MZO

> From: tosca005 at umn.edu
> To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
> Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2012 23:29:15 -0500
> Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Montagues & Capulets (was: FM vs SSB, HEO vs LEO,	etc)
> 
> On Oct 21 2012, R Oler wrote:
> 
> >
>  The gear for the linear birds is not all that much more expensive then FM 
> equipment. BUT if you dont use it for the birds and dont have really good 
> antenna arrays it is more or less not of a lot of use. The same could be 
> said in spades for some gear that will do C to X band or the other way.
> >
>  Without some sort of HEO (or even a reasonable MEO) any "band" that comes 
> from the linear birds is always going to be more "short ranged"...and while 
> a lot of people like building things etc the prime object in amateur radio 
> still is "communication" and working DX...one doesnt have to do a lot of 
> "footprint" work to see that AO-7 and VU-52 great birds that they are, are 
> still not terribly "dx" birds.
> >
>  
> Spoken like someone who is not active on the 10 GHz band. If you look at 
> the records of the ARRL 10 GHz and Up Cumulative Contest (the only ARRL 
> contest that reports the distances between stations in QSO's), you will 
> find a large number of 300 Km and longer contacts. And I'm not talking 
> about the spectacular distances covered by rare and exotic band openings. 
> I'm talking about repeated contacts between stations running 2 to 8 watts 
> into a small offset feed dishes. Microwave bands are NOT just for contacts 
> in the 20-50 Km range.
> 
> And not just for contests either. I admit that a lot of the hams in the 
> area where I lived for 33 years and now live during the summertime (where 
> the Northern Lights Radio Society plays) turn off the microwave equipment 
> and put it into storage between contests, but not all of them. In fact, 
> there are a couple of operators that ragchew on 10 GHz between Minneapolis 
> MN (EN34lx) and Grand Rapids, MN (EN37ed) nearly every day. No monstrous 
> band opening required.
> 
> The more often that people hear hams say that the microwave bands are only 
> good for contesting over very short distances, the greater is the chance 
> that the "brainwashing" will be successful. This is known as a 
> self-fulfilling prophecy.
> 
> Note that I am firmly in the camp of wishing for linear transponders on any 
> bird that we manage to fly. The accomplishments of PE1RAH prove that even a 
> tiny cubesat can physically support a linear transponder, not just an FM 
> single-channel transponder. (See 
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/59006469/le005-r2 ) And I am firmly in the camp 
> of wishing for HEO satellites if we can ever manage to get one launched 
> again. Too bad that Bill Gates (or someone with almost as much money as 
> him) isn't a ham interested in satellite communication.
> 
> Just want to set the record straight about the utility of the higher bands.
> 
> 73 de W0JT
> EN34js June-September
> EL09ro October-May
> AMSAT-NA Life Member #2292
> 
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