Swatch allows launch, downplays financial interest
Update, April 8, 1999: Dear Readers, this will be the last major update for this site until this issue is resolved one way or another. I've taken too much time away from my studies in maintaining this page, and I have a number of important papers due next week. However, this shouldn't be a problem. As I see it, there are only two distinct paths that can be taken from here. Which one is chosen by Swatch depends entirely on whether or not the satellite begins to transmit on amateur frequencies on or around April 16, 1999.
Swatch can realize they made a mistake, apologize to the amateur community and either cancel this project or move it to the commercial bands where it belongs. IF I get news that this has occured, I'll take down this site and personally thank Swatch for recognizing that the amateur band has value that can't be expressed in monetary terms.
However, as of 3:37 pm EDT, Swatch Group CEO Nicolas E. Hayek indicates the company plans to go ahead with the mission, despite the American Radio Relay League's entreaty and numerous complaints from within the amateur community. He said the more than 400 messages programmed into the mini-Sputnik are not to advertise the company's products but to promote the company's concept to "improve time coordination in a separate and new way between all parts on Earth."
Hayek downplayed the number of negative reactions that were received from amateur radio operators, stating that many more positive notes have been received from "interested users." The letter states further that about 400 of the 5000 messages received were included for transmission on the satellite. On paper, Swatch said that the door is open for dialog between radio amateurs (through the ARRL), but that since the satellite was already in orbit, it was too late to do anything about this one.
The ARRL article concerning this issue, titled Swatch Insists "Beatnik" Messages "Not Advertising," Launch On is unfortunately located on the ARRL Members Only portion of the site, so only ARRL members will be able to access the article. As soon as the ARRL releases an open bulletin concerning these changes, however, I will try to post it up on this site.
Obviously Swatch is either convinced about the inevitability of the Beatnik launch and subsequent activation, or has decided to draw out this issue in spite of the pressure from the amateur radio community and public relations damage.
If on April 16, 1999 the satellite is indeed launched into space and begins to transmit, I encourage all amateur radio operators and concerned parties to file a complaint with the International Telecommunications Union using the contact information I've added to this site. However, until that time, please hold your fire, or else send a simple and polite communiqué to the ITU to voice your concerns and inform them that an illegal infringement onto the amateur bands has been publicly reported by the Swatch company be occuring around that date.
If you have any doubt how quicking these types of illegal activities can escalate, I got a note from Orlando Costa, PY2 ANE, in São Paulo, Brazil, talking about how his ham radio bands have degraded to become essentially "luxury" Family Radio or Citizen Band frequencies.
Update, April 7, 1999: Early this morning, a new page replaced the existing "Mission Summary" of the Beatnik project, apparently responding to the numerous concerns raised by the amateur community. Their offhanded response and lack of apology for their use of the amateur bands prompted me to issue a second open letter to the amateur community at 10:45 a.m. EDT calling for amateurs to take official regulatory action as soon as possible. A mirror of the Swatch response to amateurs is available here in plaintext, or you can go directly to their site.
Update, April 6, 1999: As of 12:15 EDT this afternoon, Wired Magazine is covering the Swatch protest on their web site in an article by Leander Kahney entitled "Spam that's out of this world". Thanks to Wired for supporting this effort and for all the hits they've provided so far.Still no word from Swatch itself, however.