[amsat-bb] Update: Rent GEO bandwidth for US

[Daniel Schultz]

The main advantage of Amateur Radio in a disaster situation is our ability to
communicate without any commercial infrastructure. How long would it have
taken to set up an "aggregator" in Puerto Rico after the hurricane? Can it get
in there faster than the Verizon truck with 3 meter dish and cell tower can
get there?

How many "aggregators" will there be in the world? How hard will it be for
radio clubs to get licensed to operate an "aggregator" uplink station? Using
commercial infrastructure to link local ham radio access points is basically
what EchoLink is all about. 

Meanwhile our friends in Europe are experiencing a renaissance in amateur
radio with their new geosat. I'm not saying that we wouldn't learn something
from utilizing commercial geosats, but it seems we should be looking for ways
to preserve our amateur satellite spectrum before the commercial world takes
it away and then offers to rent it back to us. 

73, Dan N8FGV