This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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we go, welcome to Amtoc Live Call in, let's talk,
Neil's your guy Amtoc Live Good evening, everyone.
It's ham talk live episode number 146 making
the most of satellite time recorded live on Thursday,
December 27 2018 I'm your host Neil rap WB 9
VPG Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ham
talk live tonight We're joined by drew glass
Brenner ko4 ma and we'll take your calls live
in just a few minutes. Last week Josh Ward, W3ARD,
was here to talk about high -altitude ballooning
and if you missed that show you can listen anytime
at HamTalkLive .com or your favorite podcast
app or YouTube. So get your questions ready to
go. After the interview, you can give Drew and
I a call. The telephone number will be 812 -NET
-HAM -1, 812 -638 -4261. It's not time to call
yet, but when we announce that later on in the...
Third segment here will give you that number
again, but so you have that ready. It's eight
one two six three eight four two six one You
can also tweet us. We're at ham talk live on
Twitter So we'll be checking that throughout
the night as well I'll be back with drew right
after this word from icon America right here
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Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and
got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the
reception was excellent. You're listening to
HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Thanks to Icom America
for sponsoring the show again tonight. They help
bring you ham talk live Check them out at icomamerica
.com slash amateur all kinds of good stuff on
there and Another new rig coming out soon. So
you got to check that out Tonight, Drew, if I
can talk, Drew Glassbrenner, KO4MA, is here.
He's the Vice President of Operations for AMSAT
and a board member of AMSAT. That's the Radio
Amateur Satellite Corporation. Drew is a geologist
in the greater Tampa, Florida area, now working
for his own company, Karst Evaluations, where
he studies karst formations and investigates
sinkholes. Drew works a lot of FT8 in addition
to all of the satellites. So we're glad that
Drew is back with us again tonight. So Drew,
welcome back. Thanks, Neil. Glad to be back with
you guys tonight. Now, you know, I didn't even
think of this but but whenever I read your bio
here I'm not sure if if you were on before or
after my trip to Florida this summer when the
the Disney ears van Ended up in a sinkhole. I
Know if you heard about that one If I did, I
don't remember it, but it doesn't surprise me
Yeah, somebody was drilling a little too close
to the ham shack and the front tire of the van
ended up in a sinkhole that magically appeared.
I don't think that's the magic they quite plan
on at Disney World. I'm sure it was all fixed
before the sun went down. But yes, it was fixed
pretty quickly and luckily the damage was minimal.
Thank goodness for that. Well, we're not talking
geology tonight. Although you and I could probably
talk science here for a while but we're here
to talk about some of the satellite stuff and
when we're talking tonight about making the most
of satellite time being efficient and Using,
you know some etiquette and protocols and stuff
not that we're on some power trip trying to tell
everybody what to say and that kind of thing.
But to allow for some more efficient use of this
limited supply of time that we have on the satellites,
you know, it's just so critical when you have,
you know, seven to 15 minutes and that's it.
That's all you have. And you're all trying to
use the same frequency. There's some strategies
that you can use to make some contacts while
leaving time for others to do the same. And we've
got a handout that was brilliantly written by
Sean Kutzko, KX9X, that just was sent out on
Facebook and Twitter and is also in the show
description here. on the audio feed. If you look
at the description, the link is there. So if
you want to read along on some of that, it's
a short three page document that was written
that does a good job of summarizing some of this
stuff that we're going to talk about tonight.
But let's talk about some etiquette and strategies
and protocol to try to help make the most out
of this. limited supply of satellite time we
have? Well one of the things that I want to point
out is that while we're discussing this, keep
in mind this is about the FM repeater satellites
and their single channel, single frequency, everybody
shares the same input and output and only one
person gets through at a time. That's about a
quarter of the fleet that is up there. And the
rest of them are digital and transponder satellites
that use digital modes or sideband or CW where
there's a passband that multiple conversations,
QSOs, can happen at one time. So everything we're
going to be talking about tonight is with regard
to FM satellites. Some of the most important
things to making FM satellites work is that it's
a shared resource and people have to understand
that everyone needs to get a chance and you have
to share the past with others. So operating styles
like you would see on HF parking on one frequency
and calling CQ and letting people come to you,
those generally don't work out well on a shared
resource like an FM repeater. You'll see different
recommendations on how to operate through the
past but the ones that that share the past with
everyone and are the most efficient are the ones
that are going to get the most contacts for everybody
in the law, yourself included. One good example
of that and it just popped up on the MSAP bulletin
board tonight is someone asked if it was okay
To basically just say your call sign in your
grid square when you were looking for a contact
and that works a lot of people do that But it's
not the best method by far What happens especially
on SO 50 which is the probably the hardest of
the FM satellites to hear is It you'll see people
doing this just repeating their call sign and
maybe their grid square over and over fishing
for a contact That's also what happens when people
can't hear the satellite as they repeat their
call sign again and again. So if you want to
rise above that and actually make some contacts
in a quick fashion, listen. Listen to who's making
contacts on the pass. If you hear someone that
is answering calls and making calls and making
QSOS, pick that call sign out and give them a
call. If I hear W5PFG making lots of contacts
and I'm trying to make my first contact or I'm
not really up to speed and I'm kind of a newbie
on it, pick his call sign out and give him a
call. W5PFG from KO4MA, EL88. Bang. What happens
is that he knows that you can hear and he's going
to invest his time to make the call back and
make the cue so with you. And that is so much
more productive than just repeating a call sign
over and over. One of the things I do is I will
do that one time. I'll say, you know, here I
am in this grid square, you know, but then that's
it. I don't keep doing that over and over again
because, you know, I want people to know, hey,
I'm here if you need this grid square, but I'm
not going to tie everything up doing that, you
know. Ten times during pass right certain once
or twice certainly isn't a bad thing and it's
a way to to put it out there that you're there
and if the other operators know that you're a
Capable operator and you can hear the satellite
they'll call you if they want to make a contact
But first getting started a lot of a lot of guys
get into that habit and they never They never
grow past it. So it it it's kind of funny. Sometimes
you'll hear Four or five people on a pass and
they just kind of round robin Announcing themselves.
Well, if you're gonna be on a pass to talk to
somebody call somebody it works a lot better
that way Yeah, couldn't agree more and One of
the things that I've heard and and I just went
through this because I really just got started
in this a year or two ago and I've been trying
to help some others along the way and It's like
okay. I've got my antenna. I've got everything.
You know, I've listened to a few passes It's
really busy. It goes really fast. So When do
I you know, when do I jump in when should I jump
in because if you do like you do on a on a normal
terrestrial repeater or an HF frequency and weight
until there's this, you know, 30 -second opening,
you'll never get a contact because it's just
not going to happen. It's a limited, shared resource.
And so you're not going to find a 30 -second
window of dead air. Most of the time unless you
operate, you know in the middle of the night
or something So when do you call a station and
and when do you? You know kind of give up on
the on the person who didn't get a response Right
away and go ahead and and make another call Well,
it's it's really fast -paced. It's kind of like
contesting in that regard or DXing in that regard
you'll hear the passes that go really well. There's
usually only a one or two count sort of beat
before the next call or QSO starts. So bump,
bump, and then the next one's going. And that's
okay on FM satellite. Now some of the things
you have to watch out for, just like on a terrestrial
repeater, and anybody who's tried to check into
the Wednesday night AresNet knows this, is sometimes
two people will key up at the same time. If they're
half duplex, that means not being able to hear
their own downlink, they will know that they're
interfering with each other. So one of the things
that's very important to make FM satellite passes
flow and not be full of log jams and QRM each
other is to use full duplex. Now, that doesn't
mean you have to go out and buy the latest full
duplex radio or, you know, you can do full duplex
with two Balfangs most of the time. Oh, wait
a minute. He said the word Balfang. Or Wushan
or whatever the... No, I had to play the Balfang
song there. We got it in. All right. It's true,
you know, that it doesn't take a fortune to get
full duplex on the FM satellites. You can use
whatever 2 meter or 70 centimeter transmitter
you can find that has PL tone on it. And you
can use a $5 scanner for the receiver off of
the table at the Hamfest. And I've done it. You
know, you can go to a Hamfest with $40 and likely
come out with two radios that wouldn't allow
you to work full duplex. So it's not hard and
it's not expensive. What it does allow you to
do is make sure you're not QRMing somebody else
by doubling and it also allows you to adjust
your antenna for both pointing and polarity while
you're transmitting. If you key up and you hear
yourself back but you're a little ratty, you
know, you're not quite full quieting into the
satellite. You can twist that arrow or elk or
you can point it around, swing it around a little
bit, try to get it right on the satellite and
peak that signal up. Those are some of the tricks
you can do with full duplex. And it's very important
that people strive to that. I'm not saying if
you're half duplex, stay off the satellite. I'm
saying recognize that it's a limitation that
affects you making QSOs and will also affect
other people making QSOs. All right now to emphasize
this little bit being being the teacher that
I am I went out there in search of some examples
of You know really good passes and really bad
passes and thanks to Patrick wd9 ewk for allowing
me to use his vast supply in the dropbox of of
all of his contacts to try to find some. So I
picked out a couple here. We're going to listen
to a couple of them and then we're going to talk
about them a little bit. So first of all we're
going to listen to a pretty clean pass. This
one's a pretty good pass where people wait for
others to finish and are pretty efficient with
the use of their time. So we're going to listen
to that right now. ATX, Alpha, India, Six Delta,
Oscar, Delta, Mike zero three. okay so that was
a pretty efficient pass not a lot of dead air
not a lot of extra banter or anybody stepping
on anybody but but that's that's fast that's
very fast and efficient And you can hear that
sort of one, two beat in between contacts. Everybody
was using phonetics in their full call sign and
their grid squares. And it was just very efficient,
very good pass. And if I had to guess, it probably
was a pass that was a little further out west
where there's fewer people on. And that's one
thing that can make a big difference on a pass.
The East Coast has got a lot of people trying
to use the satellites. it gets a little less
out towards the west coast. So things are a little
bit easier sometimes. Same thing with time of
day. If you're trying to work a pass at noon
on Saturday, it's going to be busy. Everybody's
home, everybody's out. If you're trying to work
a pass at 3 a .m. on a Tuesday, you might even
have a hard time finding somebody to talk to.
So the off schedule sort of passes and the passes
that don't have a lot of land or a lot of population
in the footprint are really good ones to get
started on and kind of cut your teeth and get
the swing of things. Okay, now we're going to
listen to what can happen when you don't follow
those things. So we're going to listen to a clip
of AO91 and It starts off with my friend Kevin
KK4YEL talking to K2BSA slash 5 and then after
they finish their QSO, well, yeah, you can tell
what happens next. Okay, that was just painful.
Yeah, what a mess. I mean, you had people trampling
on top of each other. You had people getting
cut off. You had people jumping in. You know
didn't give time for the other person to even
try And all it ended up was one big jumbled mess
that nobody got anything out of it at all Yeah,
one big heterodyne and bits and pieces of syllables
in there. So One of the things that that jumps
out at me about this clip is that it's K2 BSA
stroke 5 and that's the Boy Scouts of America
during Jimbery on the air, I think so There's
a station a lot of people would like to make
contact with. So one of the guidelines in the
article, Sean's article that you sent out earlier,
is that rare and portable stations take priority.
So if you're on a pass and you hear K2BSA trying
to make contacts for the scouts, perhaps that's
not the time to call. Joe ham the next town over
on the satellite 800 kilometers away and to make
your 520 second contact And yes, there's a little
bit of sarcasm in there, but you hear it all
the time if A good operator will have some situational
awareness about what's going on during the pass
and that comes from hearing Hearing all the other
stations Realizing which ones might be rare or
have some sort of assumed priority that you might
want to lend a little time to and a Boy Scout
station would certainly qualify for that. One
of the other things that that clip emphasizes
is the need to be able to hear when you're transmitting
along with somebody else and neither one of you
are getting in. again falls back to having a
good antenna system that allows you to hear the
satellite and operating with full duplex so you
can hear that as it happens instead of hearing
the recording from somebody else later and thinking
hey I was transmitting that whole time oh wow
maybe me and the other guy were the reason nobody
was getting through because neither one of us
knew to to lay off the hammer for a minute so
again it comes back to having a station that
that you can hear the satellite reliably with
and having full duplex so you can hear yourself
and hear whether you're getting in or not and
having the situational awareness to be able to
know why everybody's trying to call this one
particular station. Sometimes you hear that with
grid operations, you know, satellite operators
go a little bit crazy for grid squares for their
VUCC awards. And when somebody is out and has
made the effort to go to a rare grid square to
activate it for people, again, it's not the time
for a lot of redundant QSOs that you could have
any other day. Maybe consider making one or two,
maybe one with the rare station or the roving
station it's on, and then letting other people
make some contacts. The FM satellites are a shared
resource. Only so much air time and so many people
that are going to be able to get through and
make a contact. So on those busy passes, make
one or two contacts unless you're the guy out
out roving around at the special event and save
some some more for the next day. And if that
doesn't doesn't feed your satellite hunger enough,
then it's time to move up to the transponders
and you can chat pretty much all day long every
15 minutes or so. Well, that's kind of what we
were wanting to address tonight was these things
that really make operation on the FM satellites
a little frustrating sometimes because this doesn't
happen all the time. And I did a show with Ward
Silver in 0AX. a few months ago here on ham talk
live talking about efficient operators for Contesting
and you know saying things like please copy and
that kind of thing and then you can say whatever
you want you can do whatever you want, but You
also have to take into account that there's a
limited amount of time There's a limited amount
of resources and I made a comparison between
operating satellites and contesting and you know
In contesting you're trying to run up the score
you're trying to you know get as many contacts
as you possibly can and wasted words just kind
of getting your way and if you're not doing that
then yeah, let's say whatever you want, you know,
whatever but on satellite there's only a small
window of time and it's not just you know not
running your score up it's you're not going to
make the contact and other people aren't going
to be able to make any contacts either and that's
true and it's not a it's not a hard and fast
rule again it goes back to situational awareness
if I'm on you know I'm down in Florida I'm as
far south as just about any satellite operator
in the U .S. and pretty far east among those
two. So I get a lot of passes around over the
Atlantic Ocean that might only be five degrees
or so along the East Coast. And, you know, that's
one thing because there may only be two or three
people on that type of pass. So if you want to
say hi and, hey, good to hear you again, whatever,
you've got time for it. because you're aware
that there's not this throbbing mass of hams
out there trying to get their first satellite
contact or their 100 satellite contact, you know,
on an FM station or FM satellite. Now, if that
passes, say, one straight up, you know, through
Texas and leaving out through the Dakotas in
the north and the whole country's in the footprint,
that's the time to really understand, okay, hey,
this is going to be busy, it's going to be fast
-paced, I need to pick out a call sign of somebody
that I want to talk to, I need to call them directly,
I need to answer them directly, you know, keep
the chit -chat down, and you know, that contact
shouldn't take any longer than 15 seconds. You
know, it's a call sign, a grid square, a call
sign, a grid square, and an acknowledgement.
And that's all it takes. So, you know, it's not,
we're not telling people to To you know be regimented
and fast and no chit chat. Just be aware of the
type of pass you're on and adjust for it Well
said and we're going to leave it there we're
going to take a break and When we come back,
we're going to take some questions. We already
have a couple of them coming in on the chat here.
So We'll take a look at those and talk more about
making the most of satellite time With Drew ko4
ma right after this word from tower electronics
right here on ham talk live I'm sorry to bother
you, but I'm having an antenna party and I ran
out of PL 259s. Oh come in Thank you would silver
-plated PL 259s 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
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works like a charm. Then how can you ever thank
me? I'll try to think of something. Don't be
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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
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Time. You can see the control room, a 200 ,000
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Well, it's time for your calls now. If you have
a question for Drew, give us a call. The number
is 812 -NET. ham1 that's 812 -638 -4261 or you
can tweet us we're at ham talk live on twitter
and if you're on spreeker you can also type a
comment which uh blake uh let me get his call
n4bwr uh did that and wrote in and asked what
is the maximum accepted power level I often feel
like my 5 watt signal is just getting overwhelmed.
Well this is a question we hear a lot and 5 watts
is kind of an easy number and it's about the
power output of an HT but let's dig into that
a little bit and try to explain where the problem
is coming from or where it may be coming from.
If you're operating a satellite with With just
a whip antenna a quarter wave whip and a 5 watt
HT You're under gunned to begin with so that
5 watts into a 0 DB antenna is 5 watts e IRP
or ERP So let's add an arrow antenna to that
just because that's the one I'm most familiar
with an arrow antenna is About 8 DB on two meters.
I would say maybe 10 on on UHF somewhere around
there Let's say 10 just to make the numbers easy.
So now you've got a 5 watt HT into a 10 DB gain
antenna 10 DB is 10 times the power. So now your
5 watts is 50 watts ERP So now you're you're
getting a lot Lot easier to get into the satellite
a lot easier to get over any sort of QRM or interference
or anything like that Let's take that one step
further There's always an ongoing argument between
Experienced ops in new ops and that's about tripods
Tripods a lot of operators use them and don't
get me wrong if you're incapable Or it makes
you uncomfortable to hold the antenna by hand.
I fully understand and approve of the use of
a tripod. But you have to understand the disadvantage
you might be getting into with that. The antennas
on most of the satellites are literally polarized.
They're just whips. Your aero antenna is literally
polarized. If you have a mismatch between those,
if the satellite antenna is going up up and down,
your antenna is side to side, that's going to
be up to about 20 dB of difference, 20 dB of
loss between the two. So your 5 watt signal,
50 watts out of the arrow ERP divided by 100
is back down to half a watt. So polarity is really,
really important. Twisting your wrist to match
to peak the signal strength on the the downlink
to peak the signal strength while you're transmitting
listening back through the Downlinks because
you're full duplex that has way way way way more
to do with how well you get into the satellite
Over whether you're running five watts out of
your HT or 50 watts out of your mobile It's all
in the antenna work. It's all in the polarity
matching And that's why you hear experienced
ops That can work a pass from horizon to horizon
with a 5 watt HT and an arrow Because they know
how to twist and get that signal peaked They
know how to listen while they're transmitting
and get pointed right on the satellite and they've
got the timing down path so You know not not
to make Light of the question because it's a
common question, but it's more about the antenna
and more about the pointing More about the polarity
matching than it ever is about power So this
this makes me start thinking back to HF Where
you know crank up the 1500 watts to bust the
pileups If you do that on satellite water the
implications Well, people are going to realize
that you're just stomping on folks and they're
going to complain about you and they're going
to quit talking to you. And they'll probably
send me a nasty email asking me as VP of operations
to do something about it. So, you know, you have
to be polite. You shouldn't be transmitting on
top of anyone on purpose unless it's, you know,
QRM or somebody's DMR repeater, QRM in the uplink
or somebody... I'm not saying the guy that's
CQing from Horizon to Horizon that you shouldn't
go ahead and make contacts over top of them,
but send them an email when you're done telling
them that we heard you, but you weren't hearing
us. You really shouldn't be trying to step on
top of anybody to begin with. Step back, let
somebody else make the contact, try again. That's
much more productive and makes for a lot lower
blood pressure when the pass is over. All right,
well we have another question on the texting
here from this one is from Chris AA4CB and Chris
wants to know can you use a VUHF all -mode portable
like a Yezu FT -991? Oh sure. Now the 991 will
transmit both transmit and receive both FM or
CW and sideband. So you could use it on both
the linear or the FM repeater satellites. The
problem is it's half duplex. So it would be one
half of an effective ground station. Use the
991 as a transmitter. Use something like a RTL
SDR dongle for a receiver or a funcube dongle
for a receiver or you know you quite often can
find 817s with burnout finals pretty cheap a
couple hundred dollars for something like that
or an r20 scanner with sideband you know you
need it with the 991 it's half of the equation
you're going to use it either as a transmitter
or receiver and then you're going to need something
else as a transmitter or receiver maybe an old
ft290 or something old two meter almost that
you can find for about a hundred hundred fifty
bucks at hamfest now So you can but you know
something full duplex would Would work out a
lot better or or like you said, you know two
rigs But yeah, that'll work. Okay. Well, we've
caught up on the question. So if you have a question
give us a call phone number 812 -638 -4261 again,
that's 812 -638 -4261 or you can tweet us. We're
at HamTalk Live on Twitter and these questions
are coming in on Spreaker on the comments on
the live feed tonight. So if you're on the live
feed and you're logged in, you can just post
it there too. pop up here on the screen, but
the phone number is 812 -638 -4261 if you have
some questions for Drew here while we have him
on the line for a few minutes longer. While we're
waiting, see if we get some more questions, Drew,
can you give us an update on some of those interference
issues that we've mentioned here on the show?
some uh... some hot spots perhaps uh... that
that were causing some problems on a o ninety
two yes so uh... earlier this year uh... we were
having lots of problems with uh... d m r which
has a very distinctive pulsing sound to it when
you're listening on analog f m uh... interference
on a o ninety two on the uplink uh... we put
out some messages the a double r l repeated it
We looked some stations up online through the
Brandmeister network and emailed them and asked
them to move out of the satellite subband and
most of those complied. We had some manufacturers
that inserted code into their hotspots that excluded
those frequencies or suggested that they shouldn't
be used in those frequencies. So that was very
helpful. It's not went away completely. It's
still there. We get DMR once in a while through
AO -92. We also hear radar through 91 and 92.
And there's not much we can do about that. That
has a different kind of musical sweeping tone
sound to it. And that's the military. It's their
primary band. So, you know, we're secondary users
and there's not much we can do about that. If
you've got a hotspot or a DMR system or Echolink
or any of these sort of auxiliary connections
to the digital modes, they shouldn't be in 435
to 438 or 1458 to 146. Look in your local band
plan or an ARRL band plan and please move those
out because you can cause interference. both
on uplinks and downlinks of satellites. Alright,
we've got another question here on Spreaker and
Rich in for ESS actually stole my next question.
How about an update on AO95? What's the latest
word on AO95? Well, nothing has really changed
on it. We're continuing to try different things
to get it to hear us. We're working on lining
up some really strong EME type stations to uplink
to it to see if we can wiggle the S meter on
the satellite. We've got good feedback. We have
one of the telemetry lines is the RSSI, the Received
Signal Strength Indicator on the satellite. On
all the other Fox satellites, even AO -85, that's
kind of hard of hearing, you see that occasionally
go from minus 130 to minus 60 dBm. Or dB, I forget
which one it is. We don't see that on, and that's
from radar pulses, like I was mentioning, these
big radar systems that are in the 70 centimeter
band. We're not seeing that on AO -95, so. We
continue to monitor it watch the telemetry You
know, maybe some thermal cycling will fix whatever
the problem is But you know it is what it is.
It's It's a sad thing and we're we're three out
of four on small satellites, which is still are
on CubeSats which is still pretty good and We'll
continue to try to work and try to make the best
out of it. And in the meantime the engineering
team is Moving forward on the golf project, which
are three you satellites You know three times
as big as the Fox satellites with three times
the amount of stuff and three times the complexity
in them, so We'll we'll take these lessons and
carry them forward with us 8 1 2 6 3 8 4 2 6
1 is the phone number and thanks for the questions
coming in here on Spreaker tonight and also You
can tweet us, we're at HamTalk Live. And oh,
we've got a question here from KD8VRX and says,
great show, thanks for the tips. And then, build
or buy? Any good resource for building your own
antenna? Oh yeah, we've got, you know, I wish
I could figure out how to make it more front
and center. But if you go to the AMSAT webpage
and then right in the middle of the menu bar
it says satellite info. You can scroll down that
to station and operating hints. And that's a
whole list of all sorts of resources for satellites.
And there are lots of antennas in there. Off
the top of my head some of the best ones are
the WA5VJB Cheap Yagi for satellite. the ioio
the CJU AA2TX has two different parasitic Lindenblads
for Omnis. I'm normally not a big fan of Omnis
except for telemetry collection, but those are
probably the best of those. So there's a lot
of links in there and have fun building an antenna.
You can build one of Kent's cheap Yagis for you
know the cost of a couple of connectors and a
couple of feet of coax and some coat hangers.
And they work just as good as an arrow. They
don't fold up or come apart quite as nicely,
but they're there and they're easy to make. All
right. So some good resources. Thanks for the
question, Jocelyn. And actually was working a
pass with Jocelyn yesterday over the Voice of
America Museum of Broadcasting for a little bit
and then also on HF. So good to catch up with
you there and thanks for. The question on Twitter,
so we're just about out of time here, but if
you have a question send it our way. It's at
HamTalk Live on Twitter or you can comment on
the Spreaker system if you're on that. Some reason
the software just locked up and the sound card
just wasn't talking to the software, so we did
a restart here. let's see we will go back we
were talking about power and then we also got
another question that came in so why don't we
pick up with this other question and my apologies
because I can't see who sent it right now but
the question was What about geostationary? Do
we have anything geostationary coming up? And
so I think that's kind of where we were actually
headed right before things crashed. So Drew,
you want to comment on that? Sure. Earlier last
year, we had a opportunity that we were pursuing
with Virginia Tech as the primary primary contact,
primary investigator, to put a package on a geosynchronous
satellite. It would be a Virginia Tech project
with AMSAT supporting it through building the
ground end of it and also operating it for Virginia
Tech. satellite project has been put on hold
the primary project uh... is not moving toward
uh... as it originally was and uh... from what
i have been told by virginia check that we could
not they they wanted uh... a large sum of money
uh... and they could not guarantee that they
would even ever turned the payload on or how
long it would be in orbit uh... so it turned
out to be a non -viable host for an AMSAT or
Virginia Tech ham radio payload. I have not heard
any new information on that for a while, so I
assume that is all still valid. On the other
hand, we are continuing to look for opportunities
to go to higher orbits. It is not something that
comes easily or cheaply. Part of the idea of
the golf program is to get technologies that
are required for higher orbits for independent
satellites working in lower orbits before we
spend six or seven digits of money to get to
a higher orbit. It's a disappointment that Phase
four hasn't moved any further than it has the
Europeans have a phase 4a in orbit and Go undergoing
commissioning right now. So it's gonna be more
and more pressure for us to get something up
and All I can say is that we're working on it
and we need your support now Not after it's launched
It's expensive to do these sort of things We
paid a hundred thousand dollars for a payload
suitability study to get on that previous mission.
That's the sort of money that we need just to
have an opportunity to play in the game and get
one of these sort of launches. So we're still
working on it and we hope to make progress both
with the golf satellites and our own independent
satellites in higher orbits as well as a hosted
payload on somebody else's satellite. Alright,
well thanks for the update on that. And we are
over time here and part of that was the sound
card crash. We'll go ahead and let you get on
your way Drew, but thanks so much for coming
on and remind everybody how they can support
AMSAT and all of those endeavors. Well, I'm glad
to be here, Neil, any time. And if you want to
support AMSAT, modeon over to amsat .org and
we have memberships available in the store, recurring
donations, one -time donations. And for a little
while still, if you join AMSAT, you will get
a free PDF of our Getting Started Guide, which
is 170 -something pages of satellite happiness
for you. All right, very good. Well, thanks so
much for everybody listening out there and for
writing in tonight. And that's going to do it
for this episode. So that is a wrap. for this
week's HamTalk Live. Thanks to Drew Glasbrenner,
KO4MA, and everybody out there in cyberspace
for listening and writing in. And next Thursday
night at 9 p .m. Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK, Endoff
Buckley, N6UTC, and David Aikens, N6HHR will
be here to talk about special events on board
the Queen Mary W6RO. Be sure to check that out,
and for a list of all of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com. And if you like HamTalk
Live, please consider leaving us a review on
iTunes or wherever you listen. It helps others
find us a little faster. So for now, this is
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375, and may the good
DX be yours. Thank you.