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GM7HUD > AMSAT 15.03.05 13:15l 36 Lines 1707 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 772258GM7HUD
Read: OE6DFD GUEST
Subj: Re: Ham sats - no longer worth it?
Path: DB0FHN<DB0MRW<OK0PPL<DB0RES<DK0WUE<7M3TJZ<ZL2BAU<GB7ESX
Sent: 050315/1045z @:GB7ESX.#31.GBR.EU #:25398 $:772258GM7HUD [Witham, Esx]NNA
Perhaps you should ask the question that if there is such an enormous
groundswell of demand for 30+ year old sats and
simple Mode A facilities then why isnt AMSAT building birds like this?
Because the people who build them, having done Mode A to death, realise
that S-band downlinks are not expensive, difficult or complex and give such
a better performance than 2m downlinks.
You're an antenna dude... go do the maths for S-band versus 2m. The sky is
so quiet at S-band you can get away with small antennas and small downlink
powers on the sat compared to what you need on 2m to get the same SNR. And
you dont need 3m+ long crossed yagis waving around. And it isn't expensive
to set up. Not even if you buy the gorgeous kit DB6NT sells new. Hell, his
0.7dbNF 30db gain, wx proof donwconverter ready to screw to the back of
your antenna is only 180ukp. There's Rigblasters on sale for more than
that!
It's a right royal pain that AO-40 is broken now. It had so many cool
things to play with. But there'll be something else along soon. In the
meantime there's high speed data to play with.
Anyway, why are you moaning, you can play PSK31 with AO-51 if FM repeater
mode doesn't float your boat. Then there's Oscar 7, doing Mode A when it's
in sunlight. And VUSat is due for launch this year.
The only thing missing as far as I can see from up and coming designs is a
Mode K (12m up/10m down). The late John Brannegan GM4IHJ used to writing
stunningly interesting things about playing with mode K on RS12 IIRC.
And finally, the "I cant make it work so it must be rubbish" attitude
doesn't become someone as capable as you :-) They can do it, so you must be
doing something wrong!
73 de Andy GM7HUD
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