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www.southgatearc.org
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AMSAT-UK Colloquium gets off to a flying startThe 21st AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium got off to a flying start yesterday. Amateur Satellite enthusiasts from around the world converged on the University of Surrey in Guildford to attend what must be the best Space Colloquium yet.
The outstanding presentation of the day was that given by Dr. S. Pete Worden Director of NASA's AMES Research Centre on possible mitigation strategies for Near Earth Objects. These are objects of between 100 – 500 metres in size that hit the earth 2 or 3 times a century and have sufficient destructive power to wipe out a major city. It was interesting to note that the primary strategy being considered to counter this threat involves the use of small satellites such as those first pioneered by Radio Amateurs nearly three decades ago. Dr Tanya Vladimirova from the Surrey Space Centre gave a particularly good presentation on the use of 2.4 GHz WiFi (802.11b) to provide Inter-Satellite communications. With some modifications this protocol should enable clusters of small satellites to communicate between themselves at distances of up to 10 km. The Satellite Beginners Workshop run by Howard Long G6LVB and David Johnson G4DPZ attracted a great deal of interest and as a result we can look forward to many more Amateurs becoming active on the satellites in the coming weeks.
The live demonstration of the reception of the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter by Freddy ON6UG was a great success. Despite Mars being 350 million kilometres from Earth the signals were clearly discernable using just a small dish at ground level set up just outside the Colloquium building. Surrey Space Centre, which is based at the University, ran two guided tours on Friday of their facilities both of which were fully booked.
This has enabled those attending to make contacts through the many Amateur
Satellites currently in operation.
There was, however, concern about the potential loss of wide swathes of the microwave Amateur Satellite Service allocations to WiFi, WiMAX, UWB, Galileo and Fixed Services. It is to be hoped that regulators such as the UK’s OFCOM will support the allocation of additional microwave spectrum for the Amateur Satellite Service at the ITU. Allocations at 1240-1250, 2300-2310 and 3400-3410 MHz would be particularly desirable. The days proceedings closed with the customary barbeque at the lake side followed by a long session at the Chancellors Bar discussing future satellite plans.
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