Month: August 2021

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Executive Board Meeting Minutes August 2021

Attending:

Steve Conklin (CFO), Rose Easton (guest), Keith Wheeler (Director), James Wheeler (Acting Secretary), Michael Easton (guest), Paul Williamson (Master at Arms), Michelle Thompson (CEO)

Location:

Koi Restaurant, Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (DEFCON)

Minutes:

-Opening Remarks
–Motion passed to maintain current group of Directors (Bill and Karen in absentia)
-Previous minutes edits approved
-Open Lunar Business lab equipment obtained due to running under budget on equipment
-ARDC and ORI remote lab talks continue
-Plans on movement of Remote Lab East to Remote Lab South
–Motion Passed Remote Lab South to be established on the property of Keith Wheeler, in Little Rock, AR
–Shipping costs of equipment will likely push over grant budget
—Some amount of leeway needed to adjust budgeting to cover shipping
Recess
-ERR request being considered up to $10k
-Discuss to go beyond the budget originally allocated to make up for the sudden need to shut down Remote Lab East
-Additional discussion made to take from the M17 account to make up for additional cost
-Discussion conducted on determining how far over budget lab project can go before additional meetings must be conducted
-Pertinent Budget Information:
–Currently, under budget by $2k
–Lab equipment in bay area costs $500 a month
-Motion Passed: Proposal to allow for a $20k overage on the lab budget, to account for movement of equipment to Remote Lab South, and M17, used at the discretion of M approved. In the event that additional cost beyond this limit is reached, another meeting will be held
-Progress with discussions with M17 and FCC discussed
–Future discussion with International Satellite Bureau and OET planned after meeting with the FCC
-Plans to discuss successes with the FCC and defeating ITAR at upcoming HAM Expo
-Regulatory meddling in Texas successful
–space industry people happy with meddling due to discussing debris mitigation and FCC jurisdiction
-AMSAT maintains that debris mitigation rules should not be enforced on HAM radio, believe it will destroy space based HAM radio
–AMSAT invited to meetings and to be part of the planning committee but declined
-FCC seems to be leaning more towards ORI beliefs on debris mitigation
-Possibility of LEO being one of few exceptions to debris mitigation rules
-End goal of FCC discussion is to allow for ambitious missions, including graveyard orbits
–Possibility of third graveyard orbit
-The meetings will continue until morale improves
-Note of moving of satellite antennas to Remote Lab South, due to increased space
-Discussion of grant being written by Keith to get a salary for engineers on a contract basis from ARDC, and for payment for Lab Director to maintain lab equipment on Remote Lab South, no motion to be made at time, but grant will be applied for
-Closing Remarks
-Motion to adjourn

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Weekly Engineering Report 10 August 2021

Greetings all!

1) OpenRotor will have a Ham Expo workshop from 12:00pm – 2:00pm in the Chat. Direct link is: https://ori.whereby.com/open-research-institute

Get there by clicking “Chat” in the booth at Ham Expo. 

2) Planning spreadsheet for ORI at Ham Expo has been started and the editable version is linked in the Slack.

Please add yourself if you have something to present on any open source amateur radio or amateur radio satellite service subject. Coordinate through Slack. We have excellent resources and support from Ham Expo this year. The goal is to provide a low-stress enjoyable venue to speak with attendees about the things we do and the things we want to see succeed.

I need videos of demos or time commitments for live demos. Don’t be shy – your work is of great interest at the Expo. 

3) If you are not on our Slack, or haven’t visited lately, please do – this is where daily engineering and planning happens. 

https://phase4ground.slack.com/

If you need an invite, please send me a request directly. 

4) FPGA Standup meeting was today and the team will have a lot to show off at Ham Expo and for Google Skywater in October. Most recent recording of the weekly standup is:

5) DEFCON was a big success. We had our first in-person board meeting in nearly two years. A lot of networking and discussion and learning happened. There are several projects that we might want to consider supporting or assisting. More about those projects in the #defcon channel in Slack. 

6) ORI Store (https://stores.goldmedalideas.com/ori/shop/home) will have a promotion. We have a supply of the 2019 printed paper versions of the AMSAT Getting Started With Amateur Satellites Guide and will include one in every order over $30 starting at Ham Expo and lasting until supplies are gone. 

7) Open Lunar Foundation lab purchase is complete and the lease for storage of that equipment is being transferred from Open Lunar to ORI this week. The lab equipment will move to primarily M17 Lab on the East Coast and some will go to Remote Lab South in Arkansas this autumn. If you can help reduce shipping costs then get in touch.

8) FCC has agreed to meet with us and will arrange for both OET and the International Satellite Bureau to attend. The agenda is how open source can successfully address Debris Mitigation regulatory requirements for the amateur radio satellite service, and specific microwave band spectrum defense for the amateur radio satellite service. A summary of the content for this meeting will be presented at Ham Expo. There will be a breakout session and Q&A. 

9) Work session at Huntsville Space and Rocket Center for the Birdbath Big Dish renovation has been postponed due to covid. Originally scheduled for immediately following Huntsville Hamfest, the work session will happen when it’s safe to invite volunteers to work together on site. This project renovates a 20 foot dish for open source amateur and citizen space science use.

-Michelle W5NYV