If you’re an ARRL member you can read all QST (and other) articles on the web site. It’s a recently added member benefit.

I have only been able to find this camera online for $29.99. Do you live by this store? If so, could I pay you for the cost of the camera and shipping and handling to ship it out to me in Massachusetts? I’m a photography student on a budget and this would really help!

As I said in private to you…the WORLD may disagree with your message, but I for one will always respect a person’s opinion. That is at the basis of our American belief system. It is that most basic of American/Human rights…to speak freely, that is to be appreciated.

Did Domenico act like a jackass? Honestly? He sure did. I’ve been a ham for 20 years. Volunteering to help the hobby, to help and serve others is what we do. I am a member of Erie County ARES. I use the hobby to help others. This year I came down with pneumonia during an event that had TORRENTIAL rain. I neither blamed anyone else, nor expected compensation or reward for my actions. Sadly, though, we are in the midst of a very selfish point in human history. I fear it’s spreading, too.

John KB2HSH

2. AMSAT and IARU now have the implicit backing of every university and group building satellites that use or hope to use this band. When governments come looking for “unused” bands the amateur community can point to all these groups and maintain control of the frequencies.

3. They ARE pushing the art of radio ahead. AMSAT likes to build these big birds with as many transponders on board as they can. These CubeSats are pushing the limits in terms of miniaturization and optimizing the communication systems. Many are building from the ground up and because they are universities the technology is available for use elsewhere. ITAR is a hindrance in some cases but many groups get around this by publishing non-satellite specific papers. (ie “Miniaturization of a 400MHz Transponder” vs “400MHz Transponder for Small Satellite Use”)

4. This is infusing the amateur satellite community with young and excited people. Rather then being a bunch of grouchy grey-beards, AMSAT should invite them in and talk. The people are only in school for a few years, if AMSAT puts an effort into it they can keep the new people in the hobby/obsession.

I realize that mostly it’s a few outspoken and very opinoinated people that are doing the talking but the rest of the community needs to understand what it looks like to an outsider.

Editor’s note: Well said.

Back to your other comment, let’s consider all the birds in orbit which currently carry linear transponders. AO-7 is certainly the oldest, so old that it’s frequencies are not within the modern amateur satellite band. Surely no cubesat provides any competition for those frequencies. By my count, we only have three other birds with transponders (FO-29, VO-52 and DO-64). I’ll run an experiment, since it’s quite easy to do. I’ll find all the downlinks for these birds and every cubesat that I can find. I’ll then run a month’s worth of predictions to find out how often a cubesat’s downlink falls within the space allocated to any of the four birds linear transponders. Any estimates on what the outcome will be? How many times per month do you think that a downlink/linear transponder conflict will be possible?

Expect my posting in the next day or two after I run the experiment.

>neither do they offer any competition or consume any significant resources from the amateur service.

Not true, they consume valuable bandwidth in the most useful amateur satellite sub-bands. Prime territory if you like, for linear transponder birds.

>While most of the cubesats don’t offer much to the amateur enthusiast, neither do they offer any competition or consume any significant resources from the amateur service.

I disagree. Take a look at all the stuff already in orbit plus all the planned cubesats and other University missions and come back and tell me there isn’t any issue with available bandwidth, especially on the lower (most useful to the majority of radio amateurs) allocations.

>As for frequencies, given that essentially all our satellites are in LEO, we don’t really have any competition for frequencies either.

Perhaps you are not familiar with the IARU’s satellite co-ordination website. I’d suggest you take a look there. Most of our satellites are indeed in LEO… among with most of the competition for the amateur satellite sub-band frequencies. Think about it please.

>If we can’t document such a case, why should we panic and freak out about them using “our frequencies”?

Who is freaking out? Where did I mention ‘our frequencies’? I didn’t say any of this stuff. Agreed University grant money is irrelevant to AMSAT, but I didn’t mention that either

AMSAT have some pretty grand plans for which for the forseeable future, simply cannot be paid for or delivered, in large part because the ‘free rides’ or ‘budget deals’ we benefitted from in the past simply no longer exist.

Perhaps part of this is because SSTL and many other mainly educational University companies (and they are companies) are competing for both launcher space.. and amateur satellite allocations, directly with AMSAT.

Amateur satellite projects.
As a fairly long-term member of AMSAT-UK, #3286, I can only once ever remember being polled on what I’d want. That was so long ago I can’t remember if it was in the 80’s or 90’s! It was conducted by Richard Limebear G3RWL, I believe at his own personal expense!

I appreciate that most amateur satellites take years to design, fund and launch but the means now exists to directly ask the vast majority of paying members what they actually want their hard earned cash spent on…. and it’s not new. It’s called ‘The Internet’. The last time I checked, it had been around for quite a while. Perhaps if AMSAT actually used this valuable and essentially free resource, much of what we see baing argued about on the various boards with such vitriol would go away.

Re the first posting I made….
Perhaps someone could explain to me how a non-amateur satellite can legally use frequencies allocated to the amateur satellite service?

Well….. perhaps someone could explain this conundrum please?

73 Al.
GM1SXX

As a practical matter, the COMPASS-1 team sought coordination for the use of amateur frequencies from the IARU, and obtained such authorization from them back in 2006. I’ve provided links to the IARU guidelines in the main article. Some have argued that the IARU aren’t strict enough in their grant of amateur frequencies. I am willing to consider that as a reasonable position, but the COMPASS-1 team aren’t operating illegally. They applied for and were granted the capability to operate their satellite within the amateur band. They did things the right way, and the legal way.

While some of the cubesats don’t offer much of immediate interest to the average amateur enthusiast (most have not included, for instance the ability for amateurs to make two way communication), neither do they offer any competition or consume any significant resources from the amateur service. We aren’t competing for the same grant money to get launched, if for no other reason than granting agencies aren’t willing to fund projects of the scale that we are talking about without a significant scientific (or in the case of Homeland Security) emergency communication payoff. AMSAT as an organization has as yet never been successful in securing funding from these kind of sources, so we obviously can’t be competing there.

As for frequencies, given that essentially all our satellites are in LEO, we don’t really have any competition for frequencies either. Can you provide an instance of harmful interference being caused by a cubesat, even if it was making uncoordinated use of an amateur frequency? If we can’t document such a case, why should we panic and freak out about them using “our frequencies”? This is nothing more than an attempt to create a kind of turf war, and is of no practical significance. Frankly, I wish it was, because if actual interference mitigation was necessary, it would mean that we would be launching enough satellites to make the bands crowded, and that would be great.

Thanks for your comments.

I couldn’t agree more. Since getting into bed with the Universities and Colleges they now have to compete for both launch opportunities and bandwidth in the Amateur Satellite Allocations. The stable door was thrown open many years ago and the horse long since bolted.

Most of the ‘me-too’ birds (my quote!) IMO offer little of interest to the amateur satellite enthusiast while occupying valuable spectrum space in the lower frequency satellite bands. They certainly don’t interest me in the slightest.

73 Al.
GM1SXX
A-UK 3286

Here’s is a complete reprint of one of John Branegan GM4IHJ’s SATGEN bulletins circulated in May 1994 that raises this very issue..

Satgen268 Altruistic Radio Amateurs by GM4IHJ 14 May 94
BID of this msg is SGEN268 Please use this BID if you retransmit this msg

You do something which is of no great help to yourself, but which helps me
greatly. Typical examples are the two dozen or so Oscar and Radio Sport
satellites, which have allowed thousands of radio amateurs to enjoy the
pleasure of satellite communications. Altruistic behaviour of this kind
has been the corner stone of Amsat achievement to date. But times are
changing .
Many recent satellite launches appear to have very little to do with
amateur radio, except that they use amateur radio frequency bands. These
satellites are built by colleges and universities, apparently with little
regard for the fact that they simple duplicate what college X did last
year , and what very few people are using this year. There are of course
exceptions. The University of Surrey store and forward digital birds have
totally revolutionised international dissemination of amateur radio packet
traffic. The original Uosats were crammed with excellent educational
facilities, and Dove is very close to what the perfect education sat
should be. But most of the rest of these college birds , either in space
or going there shortly, have nothing of any real value to ordinary radio
amateurs.
A typical example has been announced recently. It will , according to one
of its design team ” Give project design and building experience to the
College team “. It will carry Earth picture equipment and Navigation
reporting facilities - items which already exist in other satellites , and
which appear to attract only a very small number of users. There is no
mention of provision of any facilities useful to the ordinary radio
amateur .
This process whereby an original success generates a generally unwanted
stream of unemployed clones, is clearly not a useful way to utilize
amateur radio facilities. I suggest that a good topic for Amsat University
of Surrey 94 Colloquium discussion, should be a proposal that :- Any
satellite using amateur radio frequencies , must in future deploy at least
one mode of amateur voice/cw communications via a transponder, plus at
least one amateur band beacon. These to be available on all orbits.
By all means let College teams build satellites if they wish to. But these
satellites should not use amateur radio frequencies unless they conform to
the above provision of services for radio amateurs.
Amsat must grasp this nettle . We are being taken for a ride, which will
only be welcomed , if the college builders help us, as well as helping
themselves.
I would further recommend that Amsat publish a hit list of priority
facilities which radio amateurs want in sats. Each different sat could
carry a different mode transponder and a different beacon frequency/band.
Anyone listening around the amateur satellite bands should clearly see the
problem. We have very few mode A, K , J and S band transponder facilities.
We have a very useful group of 9.6kB store and forward birds and just one
superb education sat ( Dove). The rest of the spacebourne menagerie
consists of abandonned and neglected college specials. If this situation
continues, we can only blame ourselves. 73 de GM4IHJ @ GB7SAN

Whether or not you agree with Domenico’s comments, Compass is clearly stated *not* to be an amateur satellite, yet it operates on the amateur radio satellite frequency allocations. How can this be?
Frequency hijacking? Freeloading?

Perhaps someone could explain to me how a non-amateur satellite can legally use frequencies allocated to the amateur satellite service?

Surely this is illegal?

73 Al.
GM1SXX
AMSAT UK member 3286.

The California Constitution is too easily amended. It should take more than a simple majority of voters to amend it, as part of the purpose of having a Constitution is to avoid tyranny of the majority. We are supposed to have a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. A democracy is 49 hens and 51 wolves voting on what’s for dinner.

The passage of Prop 8 makes me ashamed to be a Californian.

If you need a BETA tester I am your man . got now else to do at the moment.

TTFN
De M1PAC

Very impressive how the image is so clear from the original, been trying to improove my images and always grateful of any ideas.

Good luck and 73 from England.