Satgen 133   Uosat3 Worldwide Packet Relay        by GM4IHJ   13 Oct 91

With Uosat3 working well, International distribution of packet bulletins
via satellite is now a practical reality. Nearly every major country in
the world has a ground station acting as an indirect gateway to Uo3, up
loading bulletins of importance to other countries , and downloading inter
national traffic of interest to stations fed by the terrestrial packet
links spreading from the gateway. BUT it is somewhat less than perfect.
Lots of initiative but too much gross duplication of effort, and , too
much concentration on Space related subject matter.

Example 1.  Bulletins sent from Amsat NA are received via Uo3 in EA,F, G
,I, ON, PA, SM, SV and VE stations. Each one of whom re transmits these
bulls into the terrestrial packet network , address to - Europe, each with
a different BID. As a result a GM BBs sees 4 to 7 copies of the same
bulletin and Terrestrial Sysops get very upset. So - retain original BIDs

Example 2.  A bulletin on terrestrial packet in G, is uploaded by a 3rd
party to Uo3. It is then downloaded by all the gents in example 1, and
again broadcast all over Europe ( including the originators BBS ). The Uo3
transit and the downloaders have removed the original BIDS so it re enters
the system purporting to be a new message - result massive duplication.

I appreciate the downloaders are trying to provide a service. But until
G who sat downloads and addresses it .EU ,realises SV is in Europe and SV
and other Europeans are quite capable of downloading it themselves.We will
have chaos. Do not readdress beyond your own borders. Retain original BIDs

Example 3.  Uo3 can work for ALL RADIO AMATEURS. BUT PRESENTLY IT IS
MOSTLY BEING USED FOR SPACE BULLs. Can I request that gateways begin up
loading and down loading from and to terrestrial packet , those
international bulletins of immediate and worldwide interest. Eg Solar
Data, HF DX info, Radio Astronomy, Visual Astronomy ,Visual Sat tracking,
Meteor Scatter, Special Propagation info etc etc. Amsat builds the birds ,
but we must not wait for Amsat to play mother and organise us into a
useful service for all Amateur radio.So lets get on with it,and get a bit
of sat user publicity by marking bulls "Rapid Transit by Uosat3"

Example 4. Sooner, rather than later ,we will get another major natural
disaster where Uosat3 could be enormously useful. Eg a replay ( the Good
Lord forbid ) of Lockerbie or the Mexico City earthquake. Are national
emergency groups ( Raynet ) aware of where their nearest sat gateways are?
Do they know the most effective terrestrial routes to their gateways. Have
they checked with the Gateway Sysops. Equally important , do they know the
addresses of foreign gateways ( Eg KI6QE's excellent list ), for speedy
direct access addressing. 

I appreciate that there are other pacsats. Although not all of them are
fully commissioned and none of them have Uosat 3's 8 to 1 speed advantage.
There is no reason at all why these birds should not be incorporated in
these general pacsat services.  73 de John GM4IHJ @ GB7SAN