[amsat-bb] ORI receives half million dollar grant, and, it's only the first.

Sat Oct 10 13:47:36 UTC 2020

Bob,

AMSAT would have been pleased to send a representative to this meeting.
Unfortunately, AMSAT's Senior Officers were not aware or informed that this
meeting was taking place.

After doing a search on the ARDC website, I do see that there's a mention
of a "Community Meeting" taking place today, but it does not list any
details about the purpose of that meeting.

AMSAT's projects have been made possible through the incredible generosity
of our members and donors. Outside of ARISS, we have generally not pursued
grants for our satellite projects. However, we recognize that the
availability of grant funds, from ARDC and others, certainly increases the
possibilities of what we can do. For this reason, the Board of Directors
created the position of Vice President - Development in 2019 to expand
AMSAT's fundraising efforts, including the pursuit of grant funding.

73,

Paul Stoetzer, N8HM
Executive Vice President
Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT)

On Sat, Oct 10, 2020 at 6:50 AM Robert McGwier via AMSAT-BB <
amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:

> AMSAT needs to have presentation to the ARDC public meeting happening this
> morning.  Over one hundred others representing various organizations have
> signed up.  The board of ARDC and the Grant election committee will be
> there to make a presentation and to answer questions.
>
> The processes, laws to follow, structures needed have taken two years to
> put into place and it has all been retarded by COVID-19 and 2020 madness.
>
> ARRL Foundation, YASME, FAR, TAPR, ARISS, ORI etc have all received
> "existence changing " grants for activities they have undertaken.
> Scholarships done by some of these organizations have doubled.  ARISS and
> TAPR have had projects funded that didn't require begging cheap hams for
> funding.
>
> Listen to the presentations and ask questions.
>
> If AMSAT isn't signed up, ask why.  I will be a moderator of the Q and A.
>
> Bob
> N4HY
> ARDC Grant Committee
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:40 AM Michael Tondee via AMSAT-BB <
> amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
>
> > Wow! Sounds like you guys have done and are doing an awful lot for the
> > hobby. My thanks to you. It appears there are resources out there if
> > AMSAT is willing to do what's necessary to have access to them. I guess
> > the question is what's that involve? Is it simply just going open source
> > or is there more to it than that? Are there other stumbling blocks that
> > they wouldn't be comfortable with for some reason?
> >
> > 73,
> >
> > Michael, W4HIJ
> >
> >
> > >
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------
> > >
> > > Message: 2
> > > Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2020 22:41:39 -0700
> > > From: Phil Karn <karn at ka9q.net>
> > > To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
> > > Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] ORI receives half million dollar grant, and
> > >       it's only the first.
> > > Message-ID: <38f30c90-6874-b8bc-5855-9e27bbb3bf66 at ka9q.net>
> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> > >
> > > On 9/10/20 19:40, Bruce Perens via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> > >> In the present time, people have grown to take the Internet a lot more
> > >> seriously, and the world ran out of IPV4 addresses in their 32-bit
> > space.
> > >> We now have IPV6, which has a much larger address space, but IPV4 is
> > still
> > >> important. So, Brian and friends sold 3/4 of our addresses to Amazon
> > for a
> > >> lot of money, and formed a non-profit to manage it.
> > > Correction: ARDC sold 1/4 (not 3/4) of its original IPv4 address block,
> > > 44.0.0.0/8. The part that was sold is 44.192.0.0/10, i.e., the top
> > > quarter, which had never been used on the "real" Internet though it had
> > > been used internally in some European ampr subnets.
> > >
> > > ampr.org still has the bottom 3/4 of its original assignment:
> 44.0.0.0/9
> > > and 44.128.0.0/10. Hams running IP are still able to use these two
> > blocks.
> > >
> > > The 44.0.0.0/8 block was originally obtained by Hank Magnuski, KA6M,
> in
> > > the early 1980s, literally for the cost of a phone call. It did not see
> > > much use until the mid 1980s when I began work on my KA9Q NOS TCP/IP
> > > package; at that time, Hank transferred control of the 44 block to me.
> > > Brian Kantor WB6CYT and Wally Lindstruth WA6JPR soon joined in its
> > > management, with Brian running much of the infrastructure out of the
> > > University of California San Diego (UCSD) where he spent his entire
> > career.
> > >
> > > NONE of us had any idea whatsoever that these numbers would someday
> have
> > > serious monetary value. We did amprnet simply because we really
> believed
> > > in the potential of the Internet and, as hams, felt ham radio was the
> > > perfect place to experiment with the Internet protocols. (Some of you
> > > have fond memories of those days, as do I.) We thought it was a cool
> > > idea that would find good uses, but we had no idea that the Internet
> > > over radio would change the world as much as it did. It certainly
> > > changed my life; in 1991 I moved from New Jersey to San Diego to accept
> > > a position with Qualcomm largely on the basis of my work with TCP/IP
> > > over ham radio, and Brian and I became very close friends.
> > >
> > > In the early 2010s, Brian obtained Hank's and my consent to transfer
> > > formal ownership of this address block to a nonprofit he created for
> the
> > > purpose: Amateur Radio Digital Communications, or ARDC. (Wally
> > > Lindstruth had passed away by this time). In 2018 and 2019, with full
> > > knowledge and consent of the ARDC board, Brian negotiated the sale of
> > > the 44.192.0.0/10 block with the proceeds to ARDC to be used for a
> wide
> > > range of charitable grants to benefit ham radio, the Internet, and
> > > especially the intersection of the two and their role in STEM
> education.
> > > Unfortunately, the nature of the IP address market and the size of the
> > > sale necessitated secrecy, which none of us liked. A nondisclosure
> > > agreement still limits what we can publicly say about the terms of the
> > > sale, though some facts can be readily determined from public sources
> > > such as the "whois" database and IP address market data.
> > >
> > > Brian passed away unexpectedly in November 2019 and I've taken over as
> > > president and chair of ARDC. Hank continues to serve on the grant
> review
> > > committee chaired by John Hays, K7VE.
> > >
> > > Since ARDC is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation, it is required to
> > > file detailed tax returns (990 forms) with the IRS; this will happen
> > > very shortly. By law, nonprofit tax returns are publicly available.
> > >
> > > Phil Karn, KA9Q
> > >
> > > ARDC President & Chair
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership.
> Opinions
> > expressed
> > are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of
> > AMSAT-NA.
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> >
> _______________________________________________
> Sent via AMSAT-BB at amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available
> to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions
> expressed
> are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of
> AMSAT-NA.
> Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program!
> Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
>