One thing I overlooked is good old ITAR. Hell, I'm even afraid to tell
my friends around here what I do for a "living". I'm pretty sure that
AO-73 was a collaboration between AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NL, a luxury that
we don't have. Plus, we are limited to U.S. launches and some of them
(i.e. Fox-1A) have a LOT of restrictions and paperwork on them, a whole
'nother full job of volunteer work. I spent weeks working on the
paperwork for the license (yes, we need a license because it flies from
the U.S.) for the camera experiment.
That being said, there are no opportunities to share with other AMSAT
organizations on development and if coming up for volunteers to build
the satellite is so difficult then that also applies to other
opportunities such as ground station solutions. Manpower... Can't even
share details about "this is what we would like the satellite to
accomplish can you (AMSAT-notNA) help with some ground station design
ideas".
As has been pointed out if anyone has any ideas go for it, but
realistically it should be something that you can offer a solution for.
Throwing out ideas is great, maybe some things have not been thought of,
but that's just like saying "and here you go do it". Get a group of
people interested in accomplishing it, at least come up with a conops,
requirements... even if you can't build it (and believe me, I am waaay
past the age of seeing some of them teeny parts much less avoiding
scattering them to the wind when my allergies kick up a good sneeze)
there is something to work with when someone comes along who can build
it. And those people are out there, but you need to get every aspect
together, so that you have the people with the plans and the specs and
the people who design the circuits and the people who get the parts and
the people who put the parts together and the people who test it. It
has to progress in steps. Start with those who can do the starting
steps, build a team, and over time you can do it!
People say (quoting you for recency) "why AMSAT is not..." but AMSAT is
not a being. We are AMSAT. Saying "Why AMSAT is not" means "why I am
not" (contributing, building, designing, whatever) "is a mystery to me."
It doesn't have to be an official AMSAT-NA program I don't believe, look
at what Mark Spencer WA8SME has done with the ideas based on the Fox
satellite.
73
Jerry
N0JY
On 1/26/2014 12:16 PM, Michael wrote:
HI Jerry,
First of all, thank you for being civil. Nice change from the last
two responses to my post. Second of all, I apparently stand corrected
on one thing. It was my impression that Fox-2 was also intended to be
another FM sat. If I am wrong in that then I apologize for the
previous characterization that all AMSAT seemed to want to do is put
up "flying repeaters". However, I will not back off my assertion that
there should be more to this hobby than portable ops using HT's and
handheld yagis. The Funcube bunch showed us not only that linear
cubesats are viable but also that fairly inexpensive SDR technology is
a great way to go as one option in receiving them. The Funcube and
Funcube Pro dongles were also a great fundraising idea as near as I
can tell. We should be taking concepts like that one step or even
several steps further and developing SDR based ground station
solutions just as we are developing SDR based transponders. Why AMSAT
is not developing stuff along those lines is a mystery to me. I know
AMSAT is volunteers but so is AMSAT UK and they got it done. I wish I
had the technical expertise to develop stuff like that but I don't.
I can certainly build with the best of them but circuit development is
not my strong suite. It just seems all we ever do anymore is show
folks how they can operate an " easy sat" with an HT. That's very
frustrating to me. I apologize for the " idiot at a hamfest" comment
too but really all I was trying to do was to express my frustration
with that same old approach which has grown kind of tired and boring
to me.
73,
Michael, W4HIJ
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