[Ground-station] [amsat-bb] Update: Rent GEO bandwidth for US

[KC9SGV]

Echostar 9
Here she is:
32 FSS transponders in the Ku band.
120 Watt...

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/echostar-9.htm

KC9SGV

Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 21, 2019, at 8:34 PM, Michelle Thompson via AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
> 
> An arrangement on Echostar9 for 1MHz of bandwidth for up to 4 years of
> USA+Mexico+Canada coverage is on offer for $2000 a month.
> 
> I'm putting together a grant proposal for ARRL, FEMA, and others to pay for
> at least year of access. I've gotten some positive feedback already. I
> think we can make this happen with some fundraising effort. I'm willing to
> provide the human resources and whatever incidental financing needs to
> happen to secure a grant for rental.
> 
> The main purpose of this type of system would be to enable field deployment
> of "legacy mode" aggregators, like the Phase 4 Ground ARAP (Amateur Radio
> Access Point). This is where traffic on any ham band, using FM or analog
> gear, is digitized by a local "collecting" repeater, and is then sent to a
> satellite from that repeater. FEMA and ARRL have expressed a lot of
> interest and support for this in the past. Phase 4 Ground needs an ARAP in
> order to support legacy radios.
> 
> You don't have to personally have a microwave digital uplink. The
> aggregator equipment does that part for you.
> 
> This is most useful for public service and emergency communications. A
> communications emergency is declared, someone (FEMA, Red Cross, motivated
> ham volunteer) drops in the aggregator, and all ham traffic it hears is
> sent to the satellite and then transmitted to the entire footprint.
> 
> The downlink is 12-14GHz. This is not 10GHz, but is receivable by
> individuals using very inexpensive gear. Traffic can be repeated over the
> internet.
> 
> What does this get us?
> 
> An opportunity to do all the R&D for the aggregator and get some experience
> with uplinks.
> 
> What do we not have?
> 
> A true ham band downlink. You can still receive the downlink yourself, or
> you can get it over the internet from an earth station distributor.
> 
> That's where we're at with *this* proposal.
> 
> I think it's worth it to provide a US-based way to design, deploy, test,
> and use real world aggregator equipment. We learn a lot about GEO comms and
> figure out a lot of the ins and outs.
> 
> Comment and critique welcome and encouraged.
> 
> More soon!
> -Michelle W5NYV
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