AMSAT President's Letter for December 2005

I am quite pleased, as AMSAT's Executive Vice President, to have the opportunity to fill in on this month's President's Letter while Rick, Barry and Gunther are hard at work on various fundraising activities for AMSAT.

It is a very exciting time to be a member and supporter of AMSAT. One part of AMSAT's Vision is a constellation of High Earth Orbit (HEO) satellites. To accomplish this, it was recognized that the old method of working on single satellites in a serial fashion would not work and that several
satellites would need to be constructed in parallel. That is exactly what is now beginning to happen with AMSAT-DL's P3E and AMSAT-NA's Eagle projects.

Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday weekend, AMSAT President Rick Hambly, W2GPS, VP of Engineering, Dr. Bob McGwier, N4HY and Dr. Al Katz, K2UYH, President of Lintech and professor of electrical engineering at College of New Jersey, hosted a meeting for several radio amateurs and a student to tackle some of the RF parts of AMSAT-NA's Eagle project.

The attendees included:

Dr. Tom Clark, W3IWI, AMSAT-NA chief scientist
Paul Drexler, W2PED, Microwave R.F. designer
Matt Ettus, N2MJI, Gnu Radio project co-leader and designer of the USRP (universal software radio peripheral)
Dr. Marc Franco, N2UO, Lintech, Inc. Engineer
Steve Hendricksen, EE student at the College of New Jersey
Jan King, W3GEY/VK4GEY, AMSAT founder, former VP Engineering, and former board member
Paul Wade, W1GHZ, well known Microwave engineer whose web based microwave handbook is read the world over.
Marc Zaharchuk, WA3CRM, Lockheed Space RF Engineer

Rick, W2GPS, got the meeting started with an overview of the project, our organization and the goals of Eagle. Bob, N4HY, then discussed the overall RF requirements for the spacecraft, including the use of SDX as the primary linear transponder with the need to plan for an all-analog backup and for command receivers.

Tom, W3IWI, then gave a detailed analysis on the C-C Rider phased array of patches. Matt, N2MJI, talked about Gnu Radio, the Universal Software Radio Peripheral, and his proposal for the CC Rider ground station which has been generously funded by Phil Karn, KA9Q.

As a result of the weekend, Marc, N2UO, who has years of RF experience including amplifiers in space, has signed up to do the envelope restoration (HELAPS) transmitters. John Stephensen, KD6OZH, has signed up to lead the receiver development and is working first on the 70 cm receiver. Paul,
W1GHZ, has agreed to design a critical component for CC Rider, the bandpass filter that will be needed to allow the transmitter and receiver to share antennas.

Finally, Al Katz, K2UYH, President of Lintech, Inc. has graciously offered to host an RF facility for the AMSAT Eagle project at Lintech in Hamilton, NJ. This provides the Eagle RF team with access to a large collection of lab/test equipment and a first class clean room facility for the development, construction and testing of Eagle's RF modules.

The RF group is not the only part of the Eagle Team making progress. The mechanical and structural group is also hard at work on the modules and spaceframe for Eagle.

One of the challenges in a project as complex as Eagle is managing all the data. During the Eagle Team meeting in Pittsburgh the concept of using a Wiki based system was discussed. From that discussion Emily, W0EEC, implemented Eaglepedia, which will enhance the updating and sharing of
information on a scale never before seen on any AMSAT project. Eagle team members are already uploading files and information and pending resolution of a few outstanding security issues, Eaglepedia will be linked to the AMSAT
website.

While all this exciting activity is going on within the Eagle team, AMSAT-DL is also making steady progress on their P3E satellite. As I'm writing this several AMSAT-NA members are in Germany working on the IHU-3 and other modules for P3E. More details about the results of this meeting will be coming soon.

There is a lot of hard work being done by a lot of volunteers in many different locations. All this effort needs your support to maintain the building momentum. There are many ways to show your enthusiasm for getting these HEO satellites built. Join the President's Club, donate directly to the project of your choice, join or renew your AMSAT membership.
All of these can be done through the mail, web site or a phone call to Martha in the AMSAT office.

73,
Lee McLamb, KU4OS
AMSAT Executive Vice President

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