Satgen 122 WHY NOT HF COSMONAUTS ? by GM4IHJ 28th July 91 After several years of VHF FM amateur radio communication to and from Cosmonauts, it may be time to consider a different approach - USB HF Voice. Firstly USB would eliminate the problem of FM capture, whereby if several FM stations talk at once nobody gets through. Secondly USB HF would permit wider ground station participation and choice of bands. Indeed there is no reason why cosmonauts should not listen around the bands and select the frequency they will appear on subject to bandplans and what they hear by way of signals propagating to them. Thirdly USB HF would permit a totally different kind of operating, whereby cosmonauts could tune across the band until they located a good CQ signal in a language they were familiar with. Having talked to one station the qso could attract a pile up, but this could be avoided if the cosmonaut simply indicated that he was tuning elsewhere and would only answer CQs perhaps from a particular call area or state. Operators interupting space ground HF qsos could be logged and blacklisted for say 6 months. Alternatively the cosmonauts could arrange series of qsos through a ground station net controller. Fourthly USB doppler is easily dealt with at HF. It should cause no problems. Fifthly Given HF from the US space station Freedom the limitations in VHF ground coverage caused by its low equatorial inclination , would not matter. Europe and Russia well below any Freedom VHF horizon, would be firmly in reach at HF via ionospheric propagation. There are problems. Some cosmonauts may not be licensed for HF, and, it may be difficult to locate a suitable HF antenna on the space station. But these should be minor difficulties We already have rumours of cosmonauts being heard on 21 MHz. Lets hope these reports become reality. The bonuses we could get by way of sub horizon propagation from the space station and all that could teach us about multi frequency band operation from within the ionosphere for perhaps several sunspot cycles , would be enormously valuable. As for extra traffic on the HF bands, one or two space stations should not make terrestrial amateur radio impossible. Suitable transceiv- ers can be made available. Genuine enquiries only , to GM4IHJ @ GB7SAN. PS THe first MAK minisat launched from the Mir airlock failed when its antennas did not deploy properly. The Olympus communications geosat has been rescued but there is the delicate task of unfreezing highly explosive on board fuel lines before it has any chance of becoming operational again. Will try to put out Shuttle frequency list next week. AO13's slow motion kamikaze looks as if it is slowing up. 73 de GM4IHJ@GB7SAN