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Hey, good evening everyone. Boy, it's been a
couple of weeks here. It's time for HamTalk Live
episode number 195, the AMSAT 50th anniversary
recap recorded live on Thursday, January 9th,
2020. Ooh, I missed that in the script. It's
2020 already. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning in. to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Paul Stetzer, N8HM.
He's the executive vice president of AMSAT and
will take your calls live in just a few minutes.
Hope you had a great last couple of weeks. I
had a lot of traveling going on and just decided
to take a couple of weeks off the show. It was
probably a good decision. There was a lot going
on. it was just kind of messy so my apologies
for being gone but I hope you you had a great
holiday season and if you're behind on listening
I hope you had a chance to catch up over at hamptalklive
.com or on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube
or catch the rebroadcast over on WTWW 5085 a
.m. at Saturday evenings at about 630 p .m. Eastern
time and and now you know, I took two weeks off
I don't think I've ever taken two weeks off and
now we've got another week off coming up I've
got a work conflict on February 6th. So just
programming note I'm gonna be gone again on February
6th, but we're inching up to episode number 200
and It looks like that's gonna be on February
20th And I've been talking to some folks and
we've got some giveaways planned for that night.
And we've got a plan for that show. It should
be a fun show. ICOM is going to give us some
swag bags to give away and Tower Electronics
has got some stuff. And LDG Electronics is going
to donate a prize and we're glad to have... Them
on board for episode number 200 so be sure to
make plans to tune in live on February 20th And
maybe you can be a winner So get your questions
ready to go about am sad if you're listening
to us live on Thursday night You can call us
after the interview the telephone number is eight
one two six three eight four two six one eight
one two six three eight four two six one that's
812 -NET -HAM -1. So keep that number handy and
we'll let you know when it's time to call. You
can also send a question via Twitter and you
can do that right now if you like. We can catch
up with that at any point along the way. So our
Twitter handle is at HamTalkLive. I'll be back
with Paul right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. I'm sorry to bother
you, but I'm having an antenna party and I ran
out of PL259s. Oh, come in. Thank you. Would
silver -plated PL259s from Tower Electronics
be too good for your guests? Those will be fine.
Thank you. You saved my life the other night.
Oh, the PL -259s from Tower Electronics? Yes,
they were very successful at the antenna party.
My antenna works like a charm. Then how can you
ever thank me? I'll try to think of something.
Don't be caught without PL -259s. Visit Tower
Electronics at a ham fest near you. Or visit
them online anytime at PL -259 .com. or call
920 -435 -2973. They have adapters, cables, antennas,
soldering supplies, and meters too. Thanks to
Scott and Jill at Tower Electronics for sponsoring
the show again tonight. To help bring you HamTalk
Live, they are dividing and conquering here for
a month or so. So they've got two shows some
weekends. The 11th, they're at the Tark Fest
in Tampa, Florida. On the 18th, Fort Myers, Florida.
the 19th Wheaton, Illinois, the 25th of January,
Arcadia, Florida, and Collinsville, Illinois.
And you can always catch them at PL -259 .com.
Well, Paul Stetzer, N8HM is with us tonight.
He is the executive vice president of the Radio
Amateur. Satellite Corporation or AMSAT North
America. He is also a member of AMSAT UK in the
Potomac Valley Radio Club. Paul became first
licensed at the age of 14 and upgraded to extra
within a few months and he has a long list of
awards he's earned on the air and formerly a
member of the Michigan State University amateur
radio club. So if it wasn't a copyright violation,
I might play the Michigan State fight song for
you, Paul, but it's a copyright violation. So
I guess we won't do that. Yeah, thanks, Neil.
And it's good to be back. In fact, I'm missing
an MSU basketball game the first half of the
year. Oh, no. Oh, my. That's no problem. Now,
that's what you call sacrifice. When you when
you miss party for ham talk live Wow, okay Well,
it's good to have you back and the 50th celebration
the 50th anniversary celebration is In the book.
So let's let's talk a little bit. What about
what happened? I got to be a little bit in and
involved in it with the W3 ZM activation So,
why don't we talk about that? Okay, well, yeah,
we had a great year celebrating 50 years of AMSAT.
We had a number of events that we did on the
air and in person as well. We had a couple of
awards. The first was the Friends of 50 Award,
which was easy enough, make 50 satellite contacts.
50 different days and get an award for that.
But our larger on -the -air event was using our
club call and getting our club call activated
from all 50 states. Something Robert Bankston,
KE4AL, or Vice President of User Services came
up with, basically based on what the AWS did
for their centennial celebration back in 2014,
although we did it in a much less formal. Fashion
much less organized fashion really but it worked
out great and we were able to get again Amstats
Club call at W3 ZM which was actually in the
issued in honor of Harry Helfrich, I'm not sure
I'm pronouncing that name right, but he was he
was a Amstats treasurer through the early years
Unfortunately, he he passed away shortly before
Oscar 6 was completed, and his name and call
signs actually emblazoned on Oscar 6, now orbiting
the Earth at about 1 ,400 kilometers, good tribute
to him. But shortly afterwards, AMSAT received
his call sign as a club call. So we were able
to activate that. Again, from all 50 states,
as well as Puerto Rico and here in Washington,
D .C. as well. We made about 2 ,000 QSOs between
mid -June and leading up to our AMSAT Symposium
in Arlington in October. Yeah, that was pretty
cool. I got a few in from Indiana and I think
Ohio and Kentucky maybe even. Didn't get a whole
lot of them in there, but I know there were a
lot of them and and sometimes we'd talk to each
other Which was kind of weird? It'd be three
ZM portable nine. This is w3 said it for you
portable eight Yes, always fun when that happens
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about the
big party. We had the AMSAT symposium going on
and had the cake and everything to make it official.
And you had some pretty special guests there
as well. So let's talk a little bit about the
big celebration. Yeah. So in mid -October here
in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington,
DC here, we had our annual symposium, and we
had several special guests. We had Lance Jenner,
K6GSJ, who was from Project Oscar. He actually
was one of the builders of the first amateur
radio satellite, Oscar I, that launched in 1961,
so he was able to join us. And it was, just as
a side note, it was very neat to see him. We
went on Sunday, we had a tour of the Udvar -Hazy
Center here, which is an annex of the Air and
Space Museum out near Dallas Airport, and one
of the launch vehicles that Oscar One was on,
the same type, there's actually a model of it
there, and he was able to point to the spot where
they mounted Oscar One. You can see why it's
shaped the way it is, if anybody has seen a picture
of Oscar One. It shaped a specific way to fit
a specific opening on the rocket, and it was
cool to see him point out that part at the Air
and Space Museum. In addition to Lance, we had
George Jacobs, W3ASK. In his mid -90s now, he
was a columnist for CQ Magazine for a number
of years, as well as in the Foreign Service here
in the United States as well. He was one of the
people who made the connection from the California
Project Oscar when their opportunities for launches
started to diminish because the center of the
space industry really moved out from out. in
California out to here in the Washington, D .C.
area with the opening of Goddard Space Flight
Center. So he helped to connect interested hams
here. Perry Klein, W3PK, our founding president,
Jan Keen, W3GEY, were also both at the symposium.
And he kind of connected them to the product
Oscar. And that led to both to the formation
of AMSAT as well as the first project. So AmSAT's
first project, after we were founded in 1969,
was to arrange the launch of a satellite that
had been built by students at the University
of Melbourne in Australia. They had written to
Project Oscar and asked them, if we build a satellite,
can you get a launch for it? And Project Oscar
replied, We'll try our best. They completed their
satellite and sent it over to California. where
it sat for a couple of years before it was brought
cross -country after AMSAT was founded and launched
on January 23rd of 1970. So the 50th anniversary
of the launch, the first satellite launch arranged
by AMSAT is coming up here in two weeks. So we
had Dr. Owen Mase and Richard Tonkin who were
both involved in that effort. They flew over
here to speak about their experience building
AO5, Australis, Oscar V, and all their experience
with that. We had a great Saturday evening banquet.
If anybody's interested in seeing the panel of
speakers, all these ... All these guys spoke
at a banquet panel, and that video is on AMSAT's
YouTube channel. If you search for the foundations
of AMSAT, you'll find it and be able to view
the banquet speeches yourself. It was a great
event. All of our living former presidents were
in attendance. big cake celebration on Friday
night. So it was a great event, a great celebration
of the past 50 years as well as I look forward
to the next 50 years. Okay, now I remember Patrick
talking about a symposium a few years ago in
Washington DC, so I have to ask the question.
Was anybody interrogated by the Secret Service
or police or anything with their arrow antennas?
trying to operate. during the symposium? No,
no. Well, no. Yeah, the area of Arlington, Virginia
that we were in isn't necessarily too near the
Pentagon or any secret facilities or sensitive
facilities, at least that we know about. And
really, the horizon in Arlington wasn't great.
There was only a couple of passes. I think just
one pass anybody actually worked during the symposium
itself next to the hotel. But not a great...
Not a great place to operate from with all the
tall buildings near the hotel. Well, I had to
ask, so I did my duty there. Well, you know,
the past 50 years has been pretty amazing and
there's a lot that's happened and it's just incredible
that these things can be engineered and put together
and affordable and launched and you know you
gotta play around with launch schedules and we'll
talk about that a little bit in some of the upcoming
launches but it's just there's just a lot of
things that have to come together to make this
all happen and so we've got fifty years of of
history behind us. Let's take a look at the next
50 years. What's coming up in the next 50 years
and what's coming up next? What's coming up soon?
Well, I guess we'll talk about both the immediate
short term and then we'll talk about the... future
beyond that but You know pace hasn't slowed down
at all We're gearing up here for some some exciting
events coming up in just just a few weeks time
the Husky sat one. It's not amsat satellite.
It was built by by students at the University
of Washington But that that satellite is currently
in orbit. It's currently on board the Cygnus
spacecraft, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo
spacecraft, and it's currently berthed to the
ISS. So it is in space. In a couple weeks' time,
the Cygnus is going to leave the ISS, move up
to a slightly higher orbit, and then deploy HuskySat
1 into orbit here. Again, that's Coming up in
a couple weeks the exact date isn't quite quite
known yet, but Once that once the satellite is
deployed now Husky sat 1 is a 3u cube set that
carries some experiments a pulse plasma thruster
to test how that works and in orbit as well as
As well as a 24 gigahertz transmitter to test
some high -speed microwave data from low Earth
orbit to the ground station at the University
of Washington. Once that mission is complete,
there's also an AMSAT VHF -UHF transponder on
board. It's a linear transponder that will receive
at VHF and retransmit at UHF. So the idea is,
again, once they're done with their science mission,
the satellite... is going to be turned over to
AMSAT, and the amateur community is going to
have access to that transponder. So, again, that
deployment should be coming up near the, probably
at the end of January, and then after the mission
is complete, again, amateurs will have the opportunity
to use that satellite. Also, upcoming is the
fifth and final of the FOX -1 satellites, RedFXSat
-2, also known as FOX -1E. That's scheduled to
launch no earlier than the first quarter of this
year, though. It's manifest on the second flight
of Virgin Orbit's Launcher 1 air launch to orbit.
system that goes up at 747 and then the the the
rockets fired from the from the 747 into orbit
Virgin orbit is appears to be targeting a test
launch in mid -february So assuming that stays
on schedule and goes as planned, you know within
a couple months after that would probably be
the the second launch although again, that's
not known at this time when exactly that launch
will occur. Officially, the launch is no earlier
than first quarter of this year. But as always,
launches do tend to slip. We've been saying no
earlier than for a long time for that one. That's
part of the challenges of getting things into
orbit. delays and more delays Yes, especially
when you're again we were This is a launch that's
provided through through NASA's CubeSat launch
initiative It is you know, we do get the launch
paid for But again, we don't we have to fly whenever
whenever whenever we fly, right? So we don't
really get that much of a say in that, but again,
you can't beat the price. And then after that,
or maybe after or before, we don't know, right?
But in March, the first flight unit of the Aeris
Next Generation radio system is scheduled to
launch to the International Space Station on
SpaceX's CRS -20 resupply mission. and that radio
system provide a much needed upgrade to the radios
that are currently in the Columbus module of
the ISS. Everybody who has worked ISS packet
in the past knows that system has been up and
down now for the past couple of years and this
will provide that that capability again, hopefully
make it more reliable and also open the door
to a lot of different options here in the future.
One thing that's been available on the ISS in
the past was a FM repeater, but that hasn't been
activated for several, basically activated for
the public for several years. So again, hopefully
this new radio system is designed with some thermal
modifications and such to be able to run it for
longer durations. And hopefully there'll be more
opportunity to utilize both the packet DigiPeder
system as well as the FM repeater on board the
ISS once that gets into orbit and gets set up
here coming up in the next few months. Now I've
got a question that just popped into my head
and we've been talking about You know a lot of
the Replacement ISS radios and fundraising and
trying to get that all going real excited about
all of that but now Something just kind of popped
into my head and I don't know if you know the
answer to this, but I'll ask it Does the old
radio come back and if so, what's done with it?
Well, that's that that's a good question. I don't
know the answer to that whether or not that will
be That will be stowed whether or not it will
be returned on a dragon that has the capability,
the down -mass capability to bring experiments
back to Earth, or if, given that it is end of
life, it's possible that it would be discarded
in a cargo, such as a Progress or other cargo
craft that actually burns up in the atmosphere.
I don't know the answer to that. Hopefully it
will be brought back at some point and made available
as an item to display as something that's spent.
I mean, the Ericsson HT in the Columbus module
is something that's been there since the ISS
was first. populated in 2000, so it's been up
there a real long time, so it would be nice to
have that piece of history. I don't know the
answer to that. Just curiosity, it might be kind
of cool to figure out, you know, what failed.
Maybe learn from it. That's true too. Well, the
radio, I guess the Ericsson, actually I guess
the Ericsson up there now was actually a replacement
if I remember correctly. uh getting into the
weeds a little bit there uh but uh yeah um like
i said i i that yeah that's certainly would be
uh would be a neat to to get it back i i don't
know if that's planned yeah well that's the immediate
future no no let's let's go long range here what
what's the long range plane Well, there are two
major projects that we're working on. One of
the exciting projects is amateur radio on the
Lunar Gateway. We're working with our ARIS partners,
including other AMSATs around the world, to develop
a radio system. an amateur radio system for the
lunar gateway. The lunar gateway is a space station,
a small space station that's going to be built
by NASA and others to be placed in lunar orbit
and to serve as a waypoint for future manned
missions in the Artemis project to land crewed
missions on the moon. We are working on that
again with all of the various amateur radio on
the International Space Station partners as well
as other AMSAT groups to design that system.
Now the system would include the ability for
the same types of activities on the ISS such
as school contacts. Now Lunar Gateway won't be
crewed the entire time, it'll only be crewed
at certain periods of time, but when there are
astronauts on board, there would be the potential
for two -way school contacts with the astronauts
in the lunar orbit, which would be really quite
an experience, even more so than simply on the
ISS. Take that to another level when these are
orbiting the moon 240 ,000 miles away. That would
be quite an experience. The other opportunity
would be actually the opportunity for students
and others to interact with experiments on board
Lunar Gateway actually through sending data and
commands back and forth and getting telemetry
data from experiments on board. And then the
other opportunity would be the other feature
of the system would be a two -way system that
would allow for Q so is over basically worldwide
as the orbit the moon progressed Now this would
this would be using probably a 10 gigahertz downlink
and then likely they're 2 .45 5 .6 gigahertz
for an uplink and It actually doesn't cost as
much as you might think. It's something that
a lot of people, those frequencies are something
that a lot of people, a lot of hams haven't utilized
in the past, but there are ways to do it that
are inexpensive and don't require a ton of investment
in equipment. So it should be something that
should be accessible. to the average hand with
a dish that wouldn't be too large and equipment
that wouldn't be too expensive. So in a similar
vein would be, in addition to the Lunar Gateway
Project, our major satellite project at this
time is GOLF, which is not only the next letter
phonetically from FOX, FOX, GOLF, but also Bacronym,
I suppose, for greater orbit and larger footprint.
So the first golf satellite is currently under
development, Golf T. And again, another sort
of a Bacronym for a technology evaluation environment.
Sorry if I got that wrong. Any of the engineers
are listening, but it's designed as a testbed
for technologies that we would need for putting
CubeSats in higher and higher orbits. We're talking
about returns to HEO type orbits in a CubeSat
form factor. Now the previous satellites in high
Earth orbit were 150 kilograms. For AO -10 and
AO -13 were 150 kilograms each. And then AO -40
I believe had 625 kilograms or something like
that. So now getting that sort of launch today
is incredibly expensive. it's really outside
of the budgetary resources. So what the golf
project is about is trying to replicate as much
of that communication capability through a CubeSat.
And the first two golf satellites, Golf T and
Golf One, are planned to be 3U CubeSats, so about
the size of a loaf of bread, the same size as
the HuskySat one that I talked about earlier.
there were three essentially three times a Fox
satellite and These are gonna be these are evolutions
on the Fox satellite, but they'll have deployable
solar panels Active attitude control so it can
keep its antennas pointed at the earth Stably
pointed at the earth Potentially have propulsion
deorbiting systems one of the complications that
didn't exist 30, 40 years ago is the requirement
for orbital debris mitigation. When you launch
something now, it has to either go to a safe
parking orbit that's well outside of any populated
areas of orbit, like between 500 and 1 ,000 kilometers,
or outside of that geostationary belt. well clear
of that, or you have to reenter within, currently
within 25 years, although there are movements
to even shorten that up. So we just can't get
a satellite launch to 1 ,500 kilometers, 1 ,400,
60 kilometers like A07 is right now because those
orbits would not, do not naturally decay in 25
years, more like a couple thousand. So we do
need to have the capability to to de orbit or
Move these satellites into what's called a parking
orbit? So that's that's a challenge the attitude
control is a challenge and then the RF is a challenge
so if we're talking about going to Highly elliptical
orbit a high -earth orbit that has an Apigee
up at near the geostationary belted to run 35
,000 kilometers the path loss and the to that
to that that far away Basically requires us to
use in the available power in a CubeSat the available
space because there's not a lot of room for any
sort of antenna requires the use of microwave
frequencies and was all sorts of other things
but Again, we're looking at 10 gigahertz, 5 .6
gigahertz, potentially 1 .2, 2 .4 gigahertz to
test out and to see what produces the best results.
But the core transponder in the golf series will
be a software -defined radio that will be able
to be configured in any number of different types
of channel configurations used for digital voice
technologies. data technologies and all sorts
of things to efficiently relay communications
across that long of a distance with having such
a small power in orbit and while not requiring
any EME class giant dishes here on Earth. We'd
like these to be accessible using a one meter
or less dish, something that most hams could
put together. Lots and lots of things to work
on and get right before these take place and
I admire the the foresight and the challenges
and accepting those of making all that work because
that's a lot to take on. Well, we're... do for
a break or we're a little over so we're going
to take a break right now and we're going to
come back we've got a couple of questions and
you said the word geostationary so we're going
to come back and pick up a question about geostationary
here and take your calls live at 812 -638 -4261
when we come back after this word from ICOM right
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at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Now,
here's more HamTalk Live! Sorry for the delay.
Your host, Neil Rapp, is reading a book on anti
-gravity and he just can't put it down. Now,
here's more HamTalk Live! Thanks to ICOM for
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them out at icomamerica .com Slash amateur ham
talk lives on the air every Thursday night 9
p .m Eastern time at ham talk live comm and be
sure to check us out on Facebook Twitter and
Instagram and it is time once again for your
phone calls So if you have a question for Paul,
give us a call at 812 six three eight four two
six one eight one two net ham one or you can
tweet us it's at ham talk live on Twitter and
if you're listening to us on WTWW or on the podcast
Edition or not here. Sorry It was Thursday night
when we did this so You won't be able to call
in tonight, but we do have a tweet here. So let's
Take a look at that, Paul, if we can. It's from
Steven N8Dez. And he says, is AMSAT North America
Board of Directors looking... for launch opportunities
other than leo uh... jealous of oscar one hundred
in europe and uh... you know maybe some uh...
millennia orbits and and he had to sneak in a
go buckeye so i guess we'll give equal time there
so uh... we'll let the ohio state fans have their
moments alright so go ahead Well, yes, thanks
for the question, Steven. Yeah, you know, we're
always looking for, AMSAT is always looking for
different opportunities and different ways to
get to orbits higher than LEO. Now, most CubeSats
are destined for low Earth orbit. Most missions
don't. have a reason to go anywhere beyond there,
and getting a launch for anything other than
a CubeSat is certainly cost prohibitive. So it's
a challenge. It's one that we are looking at.
certainly looking for different launches to a
variety of orbits. One thing that may be available
for a future AMSAT satellite would be to launch
to a geostationary transfer orbit. Now certain
launch sites for geostationary transfer orbits
would provide, could provide similar coverage
similar communications coverage to something
like AO -10 when it's at Apogee. So essentially,
worldwide coverage as a satellite progresses
across the sky with different windows to different
parts of the world. So it's something that certainly
is possible. Now, one thing that would be a big
investment of money. It's something that would
require a significant fundraising campaign to
accomplish. And we would want to make sure that
the satellite that is launched is as good as
well tested and as good as possible. And the
technologies that are in the Gulf, satellites,
like I said earlier, the attitude control, because
if you have a patch antenna transmitting at 10
gigahertz from 35 ,000 kilometers away, you certainly
have to be pointed at the Earth for that to work.
software -defined radio transponder that can
that can be configured to accommodate different
types of digital modes or different different
channel bandwidths for different activities and
such Maybe wide band channels narrow band channels
that sort of thing You know that that's something
that that we need to develop and we need to get
right the computers the onboard computers and
in the satellite need to be tolerant of the radiation,
especially in a Molniya orbit or a geostationary
transfer orbit or something like that. The satellite
passes through Van Allen belts and is subjected
to quite a dose of radiation. So the onboard
computers, the internal housekeeping units, as
they're referred to on satellites, need to be
radiation tolerant. That's one of the things
that's being developed for golf. propulsion to
maintain the orbit that you want to maintain
and deorbitate mechanisms either via active propulsion
or some sort of passive system if that's possible
from that orbit are all things that we want to
make sure work. Number one, want to make sure
that they work so that Spending a million dollars
maybe at a launch to do this is something that
is successful because it's it's it would be We
would want to make sure that works if that would
work if we were to Fundraise for and invest in
that sort of launch the second the second problem
with with getting to those types of orbits is
not Not the financial part, but the regulators
are going to want to know that you know what
you're doing especially in terms of propulsion
and and deorbiting so successfully demonstrating
those operations in Leo with golf tee and golf
one will certainly help to establish a track
record that that we can successfully operate
those systems on a CubeSat and Have that track
record when going through the licensing process
to get approval to do that, because the regulatory
matters are something that is an underrated challenge
for us at this point. It's certainly not all
technical and not all financial, but the perception
of the orbital debris problem and the public
public policy with that, and the regulators want
to make sure that you're not going to collide
with other spacecraft, you're not going to stay
in a desirable orbit as a dead satellite for
hundreds of years. The worldwide consensus is
that those who are building and launching satellites
need to be responsible operators. We can't leave
our trash lying around in orbit. The orbital
resources are too valuable for the future. So
we need to be able to demonstrate that if we're
going up there, we're not going to cause a problem
while we're up there. All kinds of challenges.
I appreciate all of those and it's a learning
process and so you know golf is a step in that
direction and so we'll see how this all turns
out but I too am a little jealous of the you
know AO100 because last month was Yoda month
and and so I was working with a lot of the kids
to get them on the air and and I was seeing a
lot of the the back chatter from Europe and all
these kids over in Europe are like hey why don't
I meet you on you know 100 all you know how 630
sound and I'm just like That's so foreign to
me because it's always Okay, you know, I've got
this 10 -minute window and I got to be in the
right place and I got to have it pointed just
the right way and we got it, you know There's
ten minutes and if you're not ready, it's gone
and they're just like no 630 sound tonight Yeah
No, and absolutely I agree that that is a the
Qo 100 is a is a fantastic fantastic resource
and certainly you know the amateur radio community
over there has benefited greatly from from from
the generosity of the the the company the SIL
satellite company that that allowed the use of
backup transponders essentially on the satellite
to be used for amateur radio use. I can't state
it too often that that is a multi -million dollar
per year donation to the amateur radio community
that that company is making by providing that
resource. And we have looked at opportunities
for geostationary ride shares, and they're available
if you pay the fee over here. So that fee is
not necessarily feasible. Given the amount of
members and and how much it would we would have
to commit to to to to do that? type of thing
over here Other not saying that it's impossible,
but but it there were a unique set of circumstances
that led to that opportunity over in Europe so
again, we continue to look for any and all opportunities
to get up to higher orbits, geostationary orbits.
And one thing that in addition to placing our
own satellites into orbit, as I mentioned earlier,
the amateur radio on the Lunar Gateway, amateur
radio system on the Lunar Gateway will provide
that sort of, that same long range Type of communication
You know when that's completed so that's also
a great a great a great potential for the future
there to have Worldwide communications via satellites
something that you know, we haven't had here
in 16 years here in the in the United States
in North America Let me throw the phone number
out one last time here it's 812 six three eight
four two six one eight one two net ham one if
you have a question because we're already a little
bit over time so we're going to be wrapping things
up soon but let's give one more opportunity for
a call eight one two six three eight four two
six one a couple of tweets Josh W3 ARD listening
to ham talk live and Paul talk about the future
of amateur satellite so Josh thank you for listening
as always he had a nice little We'll get together
on GoToMeeting the other night with some satellite
ops. I tried to get in, but the scheduling didn't
work. But if he does it again, maybe we'll do
it again. Joe, Ki4ASK says, great show. Thanks.
to me and Paul learning a lot about the complexities
of designing, launching, and maintaining the
SATs we all enjoy using. So Joe's very appreciative
of that, as many of us are, I would say. So 812
-638 -4261, here's your last chance to ask a
question. And let's kind of run down. Real quickly
the the status of what's up there from AMSAT
right now Well, so we have Well, there are several
satellites that aren't from AMSAT obviously,
but in terms of the the Satellites at AMSAT owns
Oscar seven is Up and working when it's when
it's when it's not when it's in sunlight just
off off the Solar panels obviously the the batteries
have been dead since about 19 1981 now, but That's
up there and working. AO -91 and AO -92, the
core FM satellites currently in operation are
performing great. AO -92 on Wednesday's UTC does
use a 1 .2 gigahertz uplink. That switched the
1 .2 gigahertz uplink for a 24 hour period on
Wednesday's UTC. So that gives an additional
opportunity to to use a different band. FalconSat
3 is managed by AmSat now, and that has 9 ,9600
baud packet DigiPeter as well as a store and
forward message board capability. If anybody's
looking to try out something new, that's always
a good one to look into getting on. Now, in terms
of AO85, it has not been heard from since, I
believe, December 21st now. It's possible that
the batteries have finally failed. They've been
in a seriously deteriorated condition now for
about two years now, a year and a half, two years.
I guess we'll have to wait and see if the batteries
can charge up just enough. And the voltages can
get high enough to operate next time it's in
a period of constant sunlight when it's in continuous
sunlight. And we'll see. But yeah, unfortunately,
it does look like AO85 may not come back. But
we'll see. You never know with these batteries
what they end up doing. You might have a satellite
come back after what? 20 years or something.
Yeah, you know the Nikad batteries, they usually
die short -circuit, but sometimes those short
-circuits open up and allow the satellite to
operate via the solar panel, so we'll see. So
maybe the big question is will AO7 ever die?
That's an interesting question. And I do know
that one of the lead designers, one of the guys
that we did have at the symposium, Jan King,
he is of the opinion that it may not. Of course,
eventually these solar panels will not provide
enough power to operate. The radiation will cause
them to deteriorate. But other than that, there
may not be much to fail the way it was built.
That's a great story. Really great story. of
how this thing came back to life. Just amazing.
Well, Paul, we're already keeping you late here.
So we're going to wrap things up. And let me
take one last look at Twitter here, make sure
we didn't miss anybody. I think we're good here.
So any final comments here before we go QRT for
a while? Well, thank you for having me on the
always a pleasure to join you and you know, I
think just just keep keep keep keep looking at
keep Viewing AMSAT on Twitter and Facebook and
AMSAT news service because we do have a lot of
good things Going on over the next few months
and years and if you're not a member, please
please consider joining that AMSAT org Very good.
Well, thank you Paul so much Thank you Well,
that's a wrap for this week's edition of ham
talk live. Thanks to my guest Paul Stetzer in
8HM and everybody out there in cyberspace for
listening and typing in and Come back next Thursday
night 9 p .m. Eastern time for a list of all
of our upcoming guests Just go over to ham talk
live comm and if you like the show, please leave
us a review We're not asking for money. We're
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So leave us a review if you like on iTunes or
wherever you listen that helps other people find
the show. So this is Neil Rapp WB9VPG for now
saying 7 -3, 7 -5 and may the good DX be yours.