[amsat-bb] eShail Qatar-OSCAR 100

[Paul Stoetzer]

Zach is correct. The primary barrier is money. It's difficult to
understate the value of the service that the Qataris are providing to
the amateur community. It's easily worth millions of dollars.

There are many political and economic factors that made the
partnership with AMSAT-DL possible. For background, QO-100 is a
commercial communications satellite owned by a Qatari state-owned
firm, Es'HailSat. One of the spare transponders on board is used for
amateur communications. Additionally, the Qatar Amateur Radio
Society's president is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Qatar,
Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya. al-Attiya was also the head of the
Emir's court and the Minister of Industry and Technology. As you can
guess, a state-owned company helps with the economic aspects and there
is obviously a very significant pro-amateur radio political influence.
Compare that to the political influence amateur radio has in the
United States - the most senior political official we've had who was
active in amateur radio was Sen. Barry Goldwater. Currently, Rep. Greg
Walden is the only amateur radio operator I'm aware of in high levels
of government and he's retiring when his term ends in January.

AMSAT has made multiple attempts at a geostationary satellite, but
they have all failed to materialize, primarily due to a lack of
funding. We continue to have conversations with various people about
possible opportunities in geostationary and other high orbits.
However, getting to geostationary orbit means finding a willing host
to carry us there, and all of them want lots and lots of money to do
so.

While a replica of QO-100 over North America is unlikely, we do have
active projects to provide long-range amateur communications. Our
primary satellite project is GOLF, and the first satellite in the
series, GOLF-TEE, destined for LEO, but carrying technologies that we
need to test for high orbits such as an SDR-based microwave
transponder and active attitude control is under development for a
planned launch as soon as next year. More information about GOLF can
be found at https://www.amsat.org/greater-orbit-larger-footprint-an-introduction-to-the-amsat-golf-program/

Our other active project to support long-range communications is our
work on AREx, or Amateur Radio Exploration. We are working with our
ARISS partners worldwide on developing an amateur communications
system aboard Gateway in Lunar orbit. This includes two-way amateur
communications as well as the traditional ARISS educational
opportunities.

So while we might not see a replica of QO-100, lots of work is ongoing
to return long-distance satellite communications to amateur radio. In
fact, the opportunities we're working on go beyond what a GEO over
North America can do and would enable worldwide communications. But as
has been said, it all depends on raising the necessary money to make
it happen. Please consider a donation today at
https://www.amsat.org/donate/. If everyone subscribed to this list
chipped in just $5-$10 a month, it'd make a huge difference!

73,

Paul Stoetzer, N8HM
Executive Vice President
AMSAT

On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 4:04 PM Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB
<amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
>
> On 06/17/20 11:59, Joe Leikhim via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> > Great to tune in the downlink via web server. 10 GHz and No Doppler!
> >
> > https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/
> >
> > Why don't we have a Geo-stationary satellite like this?
>
> Donate early, donate often.
>
> --- Zach
> N0ZGO
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