KC9SGV has started a mailing list for those interested in discussing the possibility of a geostationary satellite for North America. The description of the GEO groups.io mailing list reads:
GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit) or Phase 4 B amateur radio satellite for the Americas discussions. Here we post the latest news towards achieving the final goal of procuring a GEO ham radio band satellite transponder for IARU Region 2, over both North America and South America.
Europe has QO-100.We will eventually have our own GEO sat. This could be an AMSAT-NA or a non-AMSAT solution. All contributions are welcome, especially images, links etc. to your satellite ground station hardware and software.
Even though it was only started a couple of days ago, there are already 128 members and eight topics of discussion. As Sun Ra says, “Space is the place!”
Steve~W8SFC says
This has long been an area of interest for me, and I joined when I saw the initial emailing. I have always been a fan of spaceflight and satellites – ever since I saw the ECHO 1 satellite crossing the night sky as a boy in Enid, Oklahoma in the early 1960’s. Growing up in the infancy of the space age was perfect for a kid like me, I loved science and read everything I could get my hands on when it came to the subject, so this mailing list was welcome. I am preparing for the day when we have a geostationary satellite for amateur radio so I can do two of my favorite things at the same time! There were not any computers that a boy could learn from back when I was growing up, but I got a start with computing in 1977 after taking a programming course at a local technical school in my hometown, and I worked in computing operations, hardware installation and maintenance and software installation and configuration in every environment from a Honeywell level 62 mini computer to sysplexed data centers over the course of my career, (a career my Grandfather told me had no real future… God Bless him anyway, no one can be 100% when it comes to the future).
Of course, amateur radio has a lot of computer involvement so my working in this field was good ground work for being a ham in today’s world. I am looking forward to my first QSO using a new, dedicated to amateur radio satellite, and the fact it will be geostationary means no need to track it, just set it and start making contacts! This should be a weaker signal required satellite, so DX will be in the reach of many more hams than before – without an amplifier.
This is going to be great, and I am glad to be able to lurk and learn from the discussions on this, (and other email discussion pages).
As often said by the late Jack Horkheimer, when signing off, (host of a PBS astronomy program, Star Gazers), “Keep looking up!”
Bernard says
Thanks Guys,
Let’s all make a GEOstationary ham band satellite happen for the Americas !
Please join our new email list at the very user friendly .IO Groups.
https://groups.io/g/GEO
KC9SGV