Stig Östlund

torsdag, juni 30, 2011

OSCAR I and Amateur Radio Satellites: Celebrating 50 Years

This year sees the 50th anniversary of the historic launch of the first Amateur Radio satellite OSCAR 1 built by radio hams in California. A video of the operational backup on display at Dayton is now available (see below).

OSCAR 1 sent a greeting of HI on 144.9830 MHz CW to Amateurs around the world.

It was a 4kg, 30 by 30cm satellite and three of them were built. One of the satellites went up into space on December 12, 1961, one is on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC and the other was until recently sitting in a display case on the first floor of the HQ building in Newington.

ARRL Lab Test Engineer Bob Allison, WB1GCM had a lightbulb moment: Why not take the back-up OSCAR I on display at ARRL Headquarters and make it work again?

Read the full ARRL article OSCAR I and Amateur Radio Satellites: Celebrating 50 Years
http://www.arrl.org/news/oscar-i-and-amateur-radio-satellites-celebrating-50-years

The operational backup of the historic OSCAR 1 satellite was on display and tranmitting CW at the ARRL stand at Dayton Hamfest 2011.

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