RadioBanter - Satellites and amateur radio

Bjorn Westergard ) writes:
How are sattellites used in HAM radio?

Signed,
Bjorn Westergard

I think a more interesting question would be "how have amateur satellites
affected amateur radio and the world at large?".

Don't forget that the first amateur satellite went up in December of 1961,
sixty years after Marconi spanned the Atlantic, and forty years after hams
spanned the Atlantic with shortwave.

The hams who built that first one, and snagged space on an existing launch,
didn't say "how can we use this in amateur radio?". They saw it as part
of amateur radio, of trying new things and stretching technology. Just
under 4 years after Sputnik went into space, amateur radio was able to
build a satellite (in a garage) and get it into space, at a time when
most satellites were government and large; I'm not even sure there
had been a commercial satellite by then.

This set the tone for making multiple launches from one rocket, and
ultimately offered a way for many small groups and countries to get
something into space.

And just like amateur radio, the satellites were a test of what
could be done. That first one lasted a week or a few weeks, and
didn't do anything but send "hi" in morse code, though it's speed
vary with some variable in the satellite (either temperature or
battery voltage). Apart from the thrill and learning process of
building the satellite, it gave many a chance to track the satellite,
becoming familiar with such things when they were still uncommon
to most people. It also caused people to build equipment, be it
converters or antennas, to receive the signals, and as the satellites
got more complicated, that meant increasingly higher frequencies. There
were one or two similar amateur satellites, and then one went into space
that could actually relay signals. Of course the orbit was such that it was
only good for a brief time for each pass, and it too lasted a short time.
But they kept at it, and eventually OSCAR 6 was launched in the fall of 1972
and it lasted for some years, making it of some use as a relay station in
space.

To ask how the satellites are used is to think of them as a utility,
and to some extent think of amateur radio as merely a means of communication.

But like amateur radio in general, the satellites have been about
trying new things, with the ability to communicate secondary.

Michael VE2BVW