Re: [amsat-bb] P3E or Eagle (was AMSAT Journal membership)

[Paul Williamson <kb5mu@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 3:16 PM -0600 10/21/04, Freeman P. Pascal IV wrote:
>Is AMSAT-NA (the regional entity) and AMSAT proper (the international
>entity) the same organization?

There is no such global international entity.

The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation has long been known as 
"AMSAT", but other organizations in other countries have called 
themselves AMSAT-something. In recognition of that, as a courtesy to 
organizations in other countries, AMSAT sometimes calls itself 
AMSAT-NA, to emphasize that it is a peer of all the other 
AMSAT-something groups, and with the intent of reducing confusion 
about which group is meant.

>   More to the point aren't we, who are
>part of AMSAT or AMSAT-NA, members of the same organization?

Not really, in any formal sense.

AMSAT (aka AMSAT-NA) is a membership corporation, but not all the 
AMSAT-* entities are. They are organized every which way you could 
imagine. Some are branches of their national amateur radio 
organization the way ARES or NTS is a branch of ARRL. Some aren't 
formally organized at all. I won't pretend to understand all the 
variations. In some, the whole notion of "being a member" might be 
nonsense.

There is no "United Nations" organizing all these various independent 
entities into a larger whole. There is, of course, a certain amount 
of communication and coordination among them, but no umbrella 
organization.

73  -Paul
kb5mu@amsat.org
----
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