Satgen 192 Digisats , Useful or Not ?? by GM4IHJ 28 Nov 92 The BID of this msg is SGEN192 Please use that BID if you retransmit The choice of what goes into a satellite is almost always made by the builder. So it is not really surprising that we have several Digisats with almost no users, and will see several more carrying similar under used features going aloft soon. Some builders are independent of Amateur Radio funds. Some are not. All are however using Amateur Radio frequencies . What can we radio amateurs do to influence this situation ? At this time , we have some 9600 bps store and forward satellites being used full time on International traffic nets which help all radio amateurs. But only about 0.02% of the radio amateur community have the slightest interest in these sats. So we need enough to keep the 9600 links going and no more. By contrast the number of amateurs using the slower 1200 bps PSK, ground station equipment expensive birds, is very small indeed. These birds are already under used and sad to say several more clones are on the way. We therefore seem to be enroute to a gross wastage of effort. What do we really need in the digisat line ( apart from a trio or so of 9600 birds) ? I suggest that question was answered in 1990 when Dove used 2m simple to receive 1200 bps Bell tone , readable on standard terrestrial packet equipment , and took the attention of at least 80% of the amateur packet users in GM (and elsewhere I suspect) = roughly 15% of all radio amateurs. For once we had something to attract newcomers, and we muffed it. I will not waste space on the Dove problems because that is profitless and , I blame no one. But Dove is off the air on 2m and it may be that we might get it back. I commend all efforts to get it back. Meanwhile Arsene due to launch early in 93 is happily fitted with 2 way as opposed to Dove's downlink only simple packet. Arsene is in a new type of orbit but with any luck we might just get one digisat which comes near to most amateur/schools expectations. But no one should doubt that what we really need is 3 LEOs equiped with 1200 terrestrial compatible digpeaters and telemetry broadcasters. That is the minimum requirement if we are to encourage newcomers and provide something useful for Schools and Colleges. How will we get them . Obviously not by following our present course. G7CDN put it eloquently at the 92 Surrey Colloquium - "Please do not forget the schools they nuture our seed corn". I would put it much more plainly. If Tech Colleges and Universities are going to use Amateur Radio bands , they must earn their places. This will not be done by launching sats full of nothing but hitech gold bricks which are of no use to any but a very few connected, to the source builder. I do not suggest we say no more college sats. What I suggest is that no further college sats are put up in the Amateur bands unless in addition to their Hi tech minimal user gold bricks, they carry at least one item of direct use to Schools Colleges and ordinary amateurs. That way they get to mention their gold brick building successes on their CVs and they feed their own future. For, no one should be blind to the fact that the very same upper echelons of education who depend on alert well educated pupils for their intake are starving that intake of first class opportunities for early training. My message is "From now on you are welcome to make your fancy digisats but do not forget ,to include something simple in addition , for use by your next generation of students" 73 de John GM4IHJ @ GB7SAN