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Satellite Shorts From All Over
- AMSAT Field Day rules have been uploaded to: http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/awards/amsatfd.php They will appear in the next issue of the AMSAT Journal. Field Day will be June 28/29, 2008. Start preparing your Field Day stations and offer assistance to local clubs in assembling a station and instruct them in the best ways to operate the satellites.
- We are moving the AMSAT Store to our own server in the AMSAT Office to give us more control over its operation. Rick Hambly, W2GPS and Dan Briner, AB3EN are working on getting the server, getting additional high speed lines into the office and getting the server software operational and tested. Martha will be back in the office on Wednesday March 25 to take any orders. We are looking at interim store solutions until our own AMSAT Store in operational in a few weeks.
- AMSAT at the 2008 Dayton Hamvention! We are looking forward to participating in the 2008 Dayton Hamvention. We will be in our regular location right across from the ARRL area, plus we will have an additional booth space. We have a great lineup of speakers for the Saturday morning forum, final list to be released very soon. Bob McGwier, N4HY and his engineering team have promised us a great many new pieces of operational satellite hardware. Bob Davis, KF4KSS is building a full size Eagle space frame that will be at Dayton. An operational SDX that will be used in both SuitSat-2 and the HASP (High Altitude Student Platform) balloon project this summer. We are also looking at a terrestrial deployment of this transponder. We will also have a well equipped satellite demonstration area right outside the Ball Arena entrance operating all the amateur satellites passes Friday through Sunday. The AMSAT/TAPR Banquet will be Friday night at the Kohler Banquet Center. Menu and reservation information will be available in the next week or two. More information to follow.
- Paul, VP9MU has released a general c/c++ astrodynamics library which includes basic astronomy routines. Next up will be the orbit propagators, and tracking routines. See: http://homepage.mac.com/pclwillmott/GAL/index.html
- Ben, N1WBV has released a guide focusing on etiquette and operational guidelines for single-channel
FM satellites:
PDF (35K) http://www.innismir.net/etc/CourteousAO51_v1.1.pdf
DOC (38K) http://www.innismir.net/etc/CourteousAO51_v1.1.doc - The 34th Annual Eastern VHF-UHF Conference and Dinner Banquet will be held on April 18, 19 & 20th, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Enfield, CT. Please see the site for further information: http://www.newsvhf.com/vhfconf.html
- Clint, K6LCS invites readers to download and print out his 4-page tutorial, "Working Ham Sats with Your HT". If you have a print utility that makes brochures, you can get it all on one page, duplex printing. See: http://homepage.mac.com/clintbradford/FileSharing1.html
AMSAT Notes Passing of Arthur C. Clarke
This week marked the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, author of more than 100 published books in which he
foresaw the future of technology, promoted the possibilities of human innovation and exploration and
combined these with the ability to explain these to non-scientific readers. The most famous example is from
1945, when he first proposed the idea of communications satellites that could be based in geostationary orbits,
which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground. Tom Clark, K3IO recalled, "You might be
interested in knowing that Arthur was an AMSAT Life Member. His member number, quite fittingly, was
LM-2001." Tom continued, "In the 1970's and 80's, Arthur was a frequent visitor to NASA. He was listed in the
Goddard phone director as a consultant in the LANDSAT group, and he also served as a consultant at NASA
HQ. In the early 1980's (when I was AMSAT President), on a trip to Washington, Dick Daniels(W4PUJ), Jan
King (W3GEY) and I made the presentation of honorary AMSAT LM-2001 to Arthur. He was most appreciative
and spent a couple of hours talking with us about our being the "Wright Brothers" of the satellite world, building
satellites in our basements and garages." Arthur communicated with us several times in the years following
that visit. He asked that his LM-2001 Journal subscription be sent in his name to a library in Sri Lanka. [AMSAT]
| May, 2008 | |
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