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GB7LDI > SAT 15.06.04 22:52l 61 Lines 3633 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 39107_GB7LDI
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Subj: President's letter
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Sent: 040615/2002Z @:GB7LDI.#35.GBR.EU #:39107 [Swardeston] FBB7.00i $:39107_GB
From: GB7LDI@GB7LDI.#35.GBR.EU
To : SAT@WW
I have just received some excellent news this morning from Jim White, WD0E
who has been testing and finally integrating ECHO before flight. After
explaining the details of installing the wiring harness and orientating the
magnetometer Jim comments "As far as I can tell we are on track and looking good.
Echo is going to be a very cool bird."
A few minor items have to be completed as the spacecraft makes it way to the
launch site,
but I am confident that it will be 100% by the time it gets to Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile at Dayton the Launch fund with its objective of $110,000 took a
jump upwards to slightly over $93,000 with the assistance of many donors and one
anonymous donor who matched every dollar with another one. Now we should
make the final push to get to the $110,000 - can we do it? What are the
consequences of not meeting our targets.
The answers are as follows, Yes we can do it, and quite easily, if every
member of AMSAT and everyone who works the satellites (including non members) is
prepared to meet the target.
The consequences of not doing so are simple. It means that we will be
somewhat delayed in meeting the reserves that are necessary to develop, design,
construct, integrate and test EAGLE. As we have had to borrow from our reserves
in order to launch ECHO, all of our funding for satellite projects comes from
your donations, membership dues run the organization, (ie Office, Lab,
expenses, journal, postage etc so the faster we recover the Launch expenses the
sooner we can work on EAGLE.
I will be attending the AMSAT-UK annual meeting and colloquium at the
University of Surrey,
if you can be there it is always a worthwhile event and this year the IARU
satellite meeting will be at Surrey. In addition I am arranging an
AMSAT-International meeting to take place on the Friday morning, the objective of this
meeting is to try and provide a greater degree of cooperation between the
various AMSATs around the world, both in communications to our members and to
provide technical expertise as necessary. Hopefully this may provide more
information to the worldwide membership and we may eventually be able to schedule a
continuous flow of satellites both LEO and HEO. For details of the AMSAT-UK
meeting see their website (_www.uk.amsat.org_ (http://www.uk.amsat.org) )
Returning to thoughts on Dayton, our AMSAT booth this year was excellent,
probably the best I have seen, thanks to Art Feller W4ART, Barry Baines WD4ASW,
Martha and many others. The AMSAT Forum was very well attended with over
200 people in attendance, in spite of the rather poor room we were allocated
with even worse access. (Look for a change in this next year.) Rick Hambly
W2GPS, gave an excellent talk on ECHO and brought us right up to date. Gould
Smith WA4SXM reviewed his new Book (on ECHO which gives details of the
development, the specifications and operation. (Book available from the AMSAT Office),
and Frank Bauer brought us all up to date on the Amateur Radio in ISS (ARISS).
Together with the many individuals who spent time putting up the booth, and
taking it down again, as well as those who operated the booth I would like to
thank the speakers for a job very well done.
Finally, today is Friday May 28 2004, ECHO's launch window starts in 32
days ..... I am very optimistic that allwill proceed well let's hope so,
statistics for this launch vehicle and this launch site are excellent, but remember
this is rocket science!.
73
Robin Haighton VE3FRH
President AMSAT-NA
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