[Ground-station] Update: Rent-a-GEO

[Michelle Thompson]

Rent-a-GEO and transponder proposals were both/and, not either/or.

They were deliberately constructed to be complementary, addressing specific
core technologies we want to see.

Rent-a-GEO would have provided full funding for the “legacy radio”
aggregator, by paying for open source hardware and software to equal or
exceed proprietary solutions on the market today. We call this part the
ARAP, where a large swatch of communications are channelized intelligently
by an adaptive filter, then digitized and tagged and sent through. I would
have expected some machine learning and cognitive radio would make inroads
here.

Having the default transmission through this system be every amateur radio
podcast and conference video ever recorded was just a nice touch for the
hobby. Totally fun to have a free Ham TV channel that you can receive by
putting together an inexpensive ground station and using open source
software to decode.

The only reason given was (paraphrased) “we already gave you a large amount
for something else”.

This seems to indicate that the grants are not evaluated double blind, that
each applicant group only gets so much, and that ARDC  don’t think we would
be capable of executing things in parallel.

There is not much wecan do about these things if they are true.

Rent-a-GEO would have rapidly filled in part of the QO-100 “hole”.

It would have been quick visible progress that promoted amateur radio. ARRL
has a lot of new content (see Becky Schoenfeld’s work) that would have been
perfect for the default feed.

Default feed appears when no one is using the satellite to transmit
through. The number of transmit stations would not be high at all without
an aggregator.

We were asked no follow up questions. It is very concrete. It’s signing a
lease, providing a (default) feed, encouraging people to build stations,
then getting people in shape to transmit (EchoStar check-out).

The ARAP development then would have 4 years with a real channel and real
users to work with.

Thank you to everyone that helped put it together, especially our volunteer
who put us on EchoStar’s radar and got the deal.

It’s good work, I’m so proud of everyone that pulled together for it, we
won’t win every proposal, and we are in great shape.

We can get to the ARAP some other way - maybe in the transponder grant.

More very soon,

-Michelle W5NYV


On Thu, Oct 1, 2020 at 05:50 Robert McGwier <rwmcgwier at gmail.com> wrote:

> I will not disagree with you on the desirability to have a target.  Let's
> all discuss how to go forward.
>
> Bob
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 1, 2020, 2:48 AM Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:
>
>> My thought was that achievement on the ground station grant would be a
>> gateway to more. OK, but I would rather see a satellite program in
>> development. I don't think rent-a-echostar was the one I wanted to see.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 8:39 PM Robert McGwier via Ground-Station
>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't believe this is a permanent condition.
>>>
>>> We supported development of the ground segment. My perception is the
>>> board wanted something more concrete.
>>>
>>> Bob McGwier,  N4HY, Adjunct Professor,  Virginia Tech
>>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 16:56 Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station
>>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Greetings all!
>>>>
>>>> We did not get the $140,000 Rent-a-GEO grant from ARDC. But, I will
>>>> keep an eye out for a match for that proposal before EchoStar 9 goes
>>>> completely out of service.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you to everyone that helped with that proposal, the application,
>>>> and the process at ARDC.
>>>>
>>>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
> --
-Michelle W5NYV

"Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis."
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