Microsats and stuff at Cambridge Conference last week…

For my chums in the sat-comms and radio community you can download Prof Martin Sweeting’s Hotine lecture at last week’s Cambridge Conference here (mp3, running time 1 hour 12 mins, 33MB). One of Martin’s team goals is to be the first ISP on the moon, probably within the 10-15 years.

I have fond memories of visiting the ground station at Surrey many moons ago which had 16 BBC micros in one room. BBC micros were notoriously ‘dirty’ in RF interference terms so not a good thing when you are listening out for weak satellite signals. IT folklore goes that 8 of the beebs were exactly 180 degrees out of phase (in unwanted RF output terms) with the other 8 resulting in a noise canceling effect (alas I suspect it was due more to careful attention to RF screening but it’s great story radio hams often enjoy reciting).