Satgen420  Innovative Satellites  by GM4IHJ   (BID SGEN420)  12 Apr 97

The sad story of the 2nd Mexican amateur radio satellite, which now
seems to be completely lost, removes once again a highly innovative
satellite package , that will be sorely missed by amateur radio
experimenters. Fitted with a Meteor radar, it had been hoped that this
satellite would provide new insights into meteor scatter, dynamics,
time tables and communications potential, particularly as we approach
an expected Leonids shower 33 year climax in the November of either
1998 of 1999. But now we will have to wait until someone comes up with
a rerun of the excellent UNAmsat type package.

This is singularly poignant as we watch the superb display from giant
comet Hale-Bopp, which has graced the Scottish skies since first seen
here on January 21st 1997. The question coming into here from several
radio amateurs is - Will the dust being sown in Hale-Bopps track round
the Sun produce any super new meteor showers as the earth crosses this
track over the next few years. Regrettably with no Unamsat MO30 we can
only guess. It looks as if Hale-Bopp stayed further from the Sun than
the Earths 93 million miles, even at perihelion , closest approach to
the Sun. But it was close, and the Earth has an elliptical orbit . So
just maybe , say some optimists. However they are unlikely to be lucky
because it takes many separate returns of a comet to lay down a
complete dust track , and Hale-Bopp is a very rare visitor at best. So
perhaps we should not expect anything from it, by way of new annual or
biannual meteor scatter.

There has always been a dearth of innovative amsats for anyone other
than the electronics experimenter. The much maligned SARA satellite,
designed to monitor the planet Jupiters natural HF radio emissions,
was a casualty of some out right chauvinism of the "Not Invented Here"
variety. Then probably as consequence of this lack of support, it was
a failure, both technically , and as regards the somewhat questionable
usefulness of its orbit. An orbit which was certainly not optimum for
its task, in that it was tuned to listen HF signals in a band almost
completely blocked at the time by an opaque ionosphere at those lower
frequencies it could receive, whilst its orbit was such that it looked
at Jupiter indirectly at low incident angles through that ionosphere
for most of the time , rarely seeing Jupiter along lines of sight
which were clear of the ionosphere. 
 
UNAmsat and SARA are history and we cannot change what has happened.
But it is to be hoped , that these mishaps will not discourage
future builders of innovative satellites. There are a feast of useful
experiments waiting to be done by multifrequency downward looking HF
sounders; meteor radars; Jupiter HF watchers; and VLF and LF
receivers flying above the ionospere relaying what they hear back to
earth on 70cms FM wide band.