[amsat-bb] AMSAT's "new" FM satellite flyer

[Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)]

Hi!

One of the items in yesterday's ANS bulletin described a flyer that is
now available from AMSAT's web site, available at:

http://www.amsat.org --> Satellite Info --> Station and Operating Hints.

(or at the direct link is http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=2144 )

I am not the only author of these flyers. Back in 2008, Gould Smith
WA4SXM asked Tim Lilley N3TL and me to work with him on the
original version of this flyer for use by AMSAT's Area Coordinators.
Gould and Tim were most helpful in this project, and I thank them for
their contributions. Over the next 6+ years, this flyer has been revised
several times. Until AMSAT's old web site was shut down a couple
of years ago, updated versions were available in a special section of
that site used by Area Coordinators. With the changes related to the
web site in the past couple of years, that private area for Area
Coordinators has not been recreated, and we're taking the opportunity
to make the flyer available to everyone. This is probably long overdue,
as the information has been available in many places (including
AMSAT's "Getting Started with Amateur Satellites" books, available
at AMSAT booths/tables and from AMSAT's online store).

Since I live in Arizona, with many hamfests in close proximity to the
Mexican border, many Mexican hams come up to these hamfests.
I asked a couple of friends, Larry Teran KI6YAA and Alex Pereida
XE2BSS/N2IX, to translate this flyer into Spanish in 2011, which
was a great help. My grasp of Spanish is OK (some of you hear
me speaking Spanish when I work stations in Mexico and central
America), but I was not comfortable translating the flyer by myself.
After Larry and Alex did the initial Spanish translation in 2011, I have
been able to update the Spanish version as the English version was
updated.

A separate flyer is already in the works for the Fox-1A satellite, which
will be available before the satellite's scheduled launch date in late
August. Between content for the AMSAT web site and articles in
upcoming issues of the AMSAT Journal, there will be lots of
information about Fox-1A available. Once we see how well Fox-1A
works, that information will be incorporated in both the English and
Spanish versions of this flyer, and posted on the AMSAT web site.
We're starting to take advantage of how easy it is to make
documents available on the AMSAT web site, using the WordPress
content management system. This has been done with many
documents related to the Fox project already, and we will continue
to do this in the future.

If anyone wishes to translate this flyer into other languages, that would
be great. Please e-mail me directly, so we can discuss this in more
detail. Any additional translations will be posted on the AMSAT web
site, along with the existing English and Spanish versions.

Thanks, and 73!




Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK
http://www.wd9ewk.net/
Twitter: @WD9EWK