Re: [amsat-bb] AO-27/UO-14

[Margaret Leber <maggie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hamish Moffatt wrote:


> I think flawed is exactly the right term for them. Note again,
> I did not say that makes them unusable. Only that they are
> not well suited to what we try to do with them -- ie lots of
> people trying to talk to lots of other people, all at the same
> time, on a single channel. ie flawed.

After all, it's not that they are useless, they're not. For what they do 
well, they do do it fairly well. But can we design something that "works 
better"? I think so. Some agreement on what "works" means will be 
necessary, of course.

Nobody's saying "don't use the FM birds", or that the accomplishments of 
their users are unworthy, that would be silly. The birds are there, 
they're operating, and every once in a while you'll hear me in the 
middle of the East Coast US UO-14 food fight along with the other 200 
people trying to be the loudest signal on the bird. Were it not for LEO 
FM birds, I probably wouldn't *be* a satellite operator.

Nobody's saying "don't do CW" either, although *that* is "flawed" too. 
So is PSK-31 (faster than Morse, for most ops, but slower than even 1k2 
packet) So is SSB (hard to tune especially in the presence of Doppler 
and it sounds funny) So is AM (wastes power and bandwidth).

Pick a mode, it has flaws. The opposite of "flawed" is "perfect". We 
don't have any perfect modes. The implication to take from calling 
something "flawed" is that it can be improved upon. If we can't do 
better in the design department, let's give up, because there's little 
challenge in doing the same thing over and over.

*Operationally*, fergunnissakes let's *use* every asset that's on-orbit 
to its maximum potential. But let's be creative about what gets the next 
ride, too...I'm watching what Mad Scientist Bob is working on with great 
interest. (Oh, Bob? My lifepartner Gwen NG3P reminds us that your telnet 
users may legally need to be authenticated as licenced amateurs before 
the PSKbird can carry their traffic?)


The question that was being discussed, (if we don't mistake an 
engineering discussion for a personal attack) was: Where do we want to 
go with future sats, and how do we want to get there?

  73 de Maggie K3XS

-- 
-----/___.   _)   Margaret Stephanie Leber    / "The art of progress  /
----/(, /|  /| http://voicenet.com/~maggie   / consists of preserving/
---/   / | / |  _   _   _    `  _AOPA 925383/ order amid change and /
--/ ) /  |/  |_(_(_(_/_(_/__(__(/_  FN20hd / change amid order."   /
-/ (_/   '  K3XS  .-/ .-/    ARRL 39280   /___ --A.N.Whitehead ___/
/____ICQ 7161096_(_/_(_/__AMSAT 32844____/ <maggie@voicenet.com>


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