From The ARRL Letter, Vol. 18, No. 14 dated April 2, 1999
AMSAT-France distances itself from latest mini-Sputnik1
AMSAT-France wants to put some distance between itself and the latest, soon-to-be-launched mini-Sputnik satellite, which reportedly will transmit messages on behalf of a Swiss watchmaker. In a statement March 29, AMSAT-France President Bernard Pidoux, F6BVP, also called off future involvement with Russia in the educational venture.
At the center of the controversy is the nature of the messages that AMSAT-France says that Russian space authorities programmed on the satellite, expected to be launched sometime this month during a space walk by Mir cosmonauts. AMSAT-France's Gerard Auvray, F6FAO, says the new Sputnik-99 satellite will carry a 100-mW transmitter and have an expected battery life of 30 days. It will be able to transmit up to 10 different voice messages in addition to digital messages and telemetry. Data will include battery voltage and internal temperature.
AMSAT-Russia, with help from the Russian Space Flight Control Center (SCSC), had contracted with AMSAT-France last December to design and fabricate an RF module and electronics for another mini-Sputnik similar to the RS-17 and RS-18 satellites. Under the agreement, AMSAT-Russia was responsible for building the satellite frame, integrating the electronics, and programming the messages the satellite would transmit, Pidoux said.
Pidoux said AMSAT-France later found out that the SCSC had made a separate commercial contract with the Swatch watch company to put its messages on the satellite. AMSAT-France protested, citing contract provisions prohibiting "direct advertising" on the air.
"This company wanted to call the satellite 'Beatnik' and to send voice and HTML messages about Internet Beat time," Pidoux said in a posting to the AMSAT reflector. Swatch has been soliciting product-related voice and text messages via its Web site for a so-called "Beatnik Mission" satellite. The company says that, once in orbit the satellite will transmit a selection of these messages "to a worldwide audience (and beyond . . .)" between 145.800 and 146 MHz.
Pidoux said AMSAT-France was unsuccessful in breaking the agreement and subsequently made good on its part of the contract, to avoid a lawsuit.
Pidoux apologized for the situation and called on AMSAT organizations to refrain from describing the contents of the satellite's messages and to discourage listening "to this nonamateur-compliant satellite using our amateur band." He also asked that the Keplerian elements not be published by AMSAT. He said AMSAT-France is developing its own educational amateur satellite project with the help of French schools.
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Original title was in all capital letters. ↩