Up, Up and Away!
There's more to Zack's story. Zack and some fellow
students at Colorado put together a satellite called the Citizen
Explorer I. It will collect ozone data and downlink it to schools around
the world. Plus, it will introduce all the participating schools to ham radio,
since the downlink frequencies are in the ham bands.
Zack is responsible for the satellite communications
subsystem at the ripe old age of 22. He took out the original overly complex,
special purpose modulation hardware and replaced it with a terminal node
controller (TNC) and implemented the point-to-point protocol (PPP--the
connection protocol used by the vast majority of Internet users). To prove the
system would work, he experimented across town using two-meter packet radio
with his old friend Eric Permut. He demonstrated to his colleagues how AO-27
and UO-14 work to show the potential of ham radio. As it turns out, since the
uplink is on a ham frequency, all the control center operators are, in fact,
ham radio control operators in the FCC sense. So, Zack became an Amateur Radio
Elmer. At the end of his class, 10 out of 11 of his students passed their
Technician exam on the first try!
A BARC Junior is now introducing others to Amateur
Radio--in a very big way! Ellie Van Winkle exclaimed, "I now have ham radio
grandchildren!" -- Dave Casler, KE0OG
Page last modified: 10:51 AM, 03 Apr 2003 ET
Page author: webmaster@arrl.org
Copyright © 2003, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
