Amateur Radio Operators Protest Russian Satellite Plans
http://www.spaceviews.com/1999/04/11b.html
SpaceViews
Published: 1999 April 11
3:50 pm ET (1950 UT)\
Amateur radio operators are criticizing the Russian Space Agency and a Swiss corporation for plans to use a minisatellite for what the amateurs claim to be a commercial promotion.
The Swatch corporation plans to use an amateur radio repeater on the RS-19, or "Sputnik-99" minisatellite, later this month to transmit short messages submitted to the company's Web site by the public. The satellite, brought to the Mir on board the Progress M-41 spacecraft earlier this month,is scheduled to be deployed from the station on April 16.
Swatch claims that the ".beatnik project" is not a commercial effort to promote the company but an effort to "improve time coordination ina separate and new way between all parts on Earth," according to an except ofa statement by Swatch Group CEO Nicolas Hayek on an anti-Swatch Web site.
"Our idea came out of a very democratic intent: to open up the possibility to send messages into space to as many people as possible," thecompany said on its Web site. "The only way to achieve this goal was to use as many media as available, with the purpose of not excluding anybody."
However, amateur radio operators worldwide are upset that the company is using an amateur radio band -- 145.8 to 146.0 MHz -- for a project that largely serves a single company, and not the amateur radio community atlarge.
"This isn't an issue of freeing up the radio bands," said Rob Carlson, who has set up a "Swatch Protest and Boycott" Web site. "Swatch never had any right to set up shop on those frequencies, but now they're acting like a great injustice has been put upon them and the people of Earth when we ask their company to leave."
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has also urged Swatchto cancel its promotion. "The Amateur Radio community must stand against the'Beatnik' satellite because it represents such an undesirable precedent," ARRL executive vice president David Sumner said in a statement. He called on Swatch to use excess capacity on a commercial satellite for its project.
The Russian Space Agency built the RS-19 satellite to measure the behavior of small objects in the presence of the larger space station. RSA contracted with branches of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), in France and Russia to provide the amateur radio repeater on the spacecraft.
However, RSA then contracted with Swatch to allow the Swiss company to transmit voice and text messages using the repeater. The French and Russian AMSAT organizations protested the decision when the heard of it and have distanced themselves from the project.
About 400 messages, which referenced Swatch's "beat" theme and the company's concept for a single "Internet time", were loaded onto the satellite before launch. Swatch said that most of the 5,000 messages submitted were very positive, but comments on the beatnik Web site now have been overwhelmingly opposed to the venture.
Amateur radio operators claim the use of amateur frequencies for the Swatch project by the RS-19 satellite is a violation of international treaty.