Satgen 171  Gateways. Amsat Future ?    by GM4IHJ              5th July 92

The meeting at Guildford Surrey on July 30th, prior to the Amsat UK
Colloquium, could provide some fireworks. One subject up for discussion is
"GATEWAYS" . You can grade the arguments into 4 relatively discrete groups

1.  IARU Region 1 are alleged to want to formalise gateway "Laws". Their
request for comments went out on INTERNET ( not available to most ordinary
amateurs ). The text included the telling phrase quote "this issue was for
Amsat Groups ( that are all on Internet) NOT FOR PUBLIC DISCUSSION ". 
I have not altered the grammar or tense or any other part of this
statement. I cannot believe that this is what IARU really mean to suggest.
2.  The opposite point of view is posed by WA6ITF . He points out that we
need to use satellites to open up the microwaves to allow ordinary none
satellite using amateurs to join in , using hand talkies to access
gateways in order to have QSOs worldwide. As he says - it is their money (
through ARRL etc) which helps pay for the satellites we use. This way we
occupy and keep our microwave bands and have excellent platforms on which
to conduct all manner of experiments - not least the construction of the
far from simple gateways.
3.    Then there is the satellite builders point of view. Ably forwarded
by N4HY, who works his backside off providing us with excellent orbiters.
He points out that we need lots of real time experimental experience of
gateways before , if ever, we start to lay down any laws.
4.    Last but not least there are the gateway builders and, the single
users. The gateway builders very positively take amateur radio to the
front of the state of the art and deserve a very big say in what we do.
While the single user of the satellites has to overcome a serious
technical obstacle course before he gets onto the satellite. So he may be
excused if he feels gateways take up too much satellite time and space.
Single users may have a point as long as Uo22 has to bear almost all the
store and forward load, but even today I suspect they are suffering more
because they cannot be at home to take the better passes. Certainly my
observation suggests the gateways pose no serious long term problems.

The meeting at Surrey will be composed of Amsat group leaders ( few of
whom are active sat users), Sat builders, and a few single users. Very few
gateway builders will be there. So please if you are going - Do not let
anything be set in concrete, and , afterwards lets have a meeting report
published widely - not just Internet. Yes IHJ agrees with N4HY and WA6ITF.

KITSAT - Have been looking at Kitsats orbit and have reached some
interesting conclusions. Kitsat 9600 bps will hopefully be heard by mid
latitude stations for rather longer and stronger than Uo22, Pacsat16, and
Lusat 19. Reason is the 65 deg inclination. The 8 consecutive in range
passes in the daily Kitsat window have 1st and 8th horizon scrapers but
all the rest pass close to mid lat stations. This is very different from
Uo22 etc whose polar orbits in mid and late afternoon are much too far
north to be received properly by most mid lat stations. Equally Kitsat
passes are higher and so last longer AOS to LOS and have slower doppler.
Lets hope this gift from Korea and Surrey works well. Then it could take
the heat off Uo22 and cool the gateway argument. 73 de GM4IHJ @ GB7SAN