Mirror site: Swatch replies to hams
Sometime on the morning of April 7, 1999, this page replaced the existing "Mission Summary" of the Beatnik project, apparently responding to the numerous concerns raised by the amateur community.
Plaintext mirror of the Swatch company's reply to the amateur radio community
You can also view the actual page here.
the beatnik
The Beat Generation: a generation without time or space
It's back, after having broken down political and social barriers. It's back, making itself heard round the clock on the network. Thirty years later the Beat Generation is still travelling along its road at the speed of optical fibres, releasing its ideas into space, and communicating and dreaming without boundaries of any kind. Thousands of people from all over the world have sent us their messages of hope, peace and brotherhood, which have been transmitted to a satellite whose task will be to scatter them in space. Naturally, since they are radio signals, they can also be heard on Earth on some frequencies in areas with satellite coverage. This means using channels normally used by radio amateurs, which we consider as some of the major exponents of the freedom of communication.
This message is intended to clarify the confusion currently existing on the .beatnik project. Just like everybody else, Swatch is very excited about the radio as a means of communication on earth and into space.
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. The only way to achieve this goal was to use as many media as available, with the purpose of not excluding anybody.
The messages that the .beatnik satellite will send are not advertising and do not contain the brand name Swatch. They are messages that people, just like you, have left on the website in the hope that they could be sent into space. We see this as totally in tune with the spirit of freedom of communication and a democratic way of using radio as a means of communication.
It is a great opportunity for Amateur Radio to gain an even wider audience.
The .beatnik satellite is built by the Russian Space Program and is used to carry out ballistic measurements around the MIR space station, namely, to monitor the behaviour of small objects around a large space station - measurements which will prove very important in connection to the launch of the International Space Station in the forecoming future.
Watch this space to see the final list of messages sent into space via .beatnik.
We feel that providing everybody with a microphone for the world and the universe and exercising the freedom to transmit messages, in addition to being a duty towards those who have believed in us and in our scheme, is positive for that which is freedom of expression.
As always there has never been a better cause than the fight to gain any kind of freedom.