Talk:OSCAR

What do they do????
They use amateur radio frequencies to communicate with Earth... Communicate WHAT? 94.191.142.18 (talk) 17:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I rewrote that sentence. Some sats are only transmitters that send signals to ground stations but most are relays or repeaters used to relay or repeat messages between different stations. Roger (talk) 18:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Added to the main heading for this page, hopefully it helps to better explain what the satellites are used for. kf4yfd (talk) 16:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Chronology link colors
Red is not going to work as a link color here. In Wiki, Red means a link to a non-existent page. I'd suggest doing this as a table with a status column to show which sat is in which condition and leave the link colors to their natural state. If time permits, I'll try to take care of this. Other than that, good work, anon! --StuffOfInterest 11:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Just a followup. I've got about half of the list converted over to table form now.  Because of the length of the list, I think the whole thing should probably be moved to List of OSCAR satellites at some point. --StuffOfInterest 19:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I do not beleive that this list is long enought to warrant the creation of another page. 153.25.87.34 00:17, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm in no hurry. And thanks for finishing the conversion to a table.  That is some really tedious work. --StuffOfInterest 10:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Note
RS-1 and RS-2 are missing from this list, I believe they were launched by the USSR after the launch of OSCAR-8. See http://centaur.sstl.co.uk/sshp/micro/micro70s.html --Lord Nightmare 16:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There have been about 30 RS satellites so far. Since they are not part of the OSCAR series, they should be treated in amateur radio satellite. --Cqeme (talk) 19:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Updates
Does anyone know the status of AMSAT-Phase 3E (Scheduled to launch on March 12 2007) and KiwiSAT (Scheduled to launch on June 15 2008)? Potential launch dates were listed for those satellites, and those dates have already passed. Malcolmst (talk) 14:07, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The list is quite badly out of date and there are even a number of "old" gaps such as SUNSAT(SO-35). Roger (talk) 18:41, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Color Coding Change?
The listing of satellites is great - but the colors used (specifically, red and green) for the status of each satellite are very hard for those of us who are red/green colorblind (and there are lots of us - mostly males) to distinguish! I am not familiar enough with programming charts and templates, etc. to do it myself.... it would be much appreciated if someone who is 'in the know' could switch colors - preferably bold, contrasting colors (which is easy since there's only 3 colors needed for this chart, and makes it much more easy for r/g cb people...)

Much appreciated if anyone could do it!

itinerant_tuna (talk) 02:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The page has been updated per your request for red/green colorblind readability. The colors were left in-place but text has been added in order to clarify the meaning of the "status" column. ''' --kf4yfd (talk) 12:34, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

FM Birds Section
Is it really necessary to list birds that are broken? It would be great if this section could be informative in a practical sense. If I am a new ham, with my HT, and I want to know which FM birds exist that I can work, is it important to see birds in the list that are non-functional? Why does HO-68 need to be in the list, sparkgap? Also, sparkgap, you added back AO-16, saying it is _like_ a FM bird.. but it _isn't_ an FM bird. DSB-SC is not FM. You can't work that bird FM. I'm open to hearing the rationale, but this whole page is way less useful/informative than it really could be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Achra (talk • contribs) 01:06, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * According to AMSAT, AO-16 is an FM bird, and I added proper citation of this on the article. AO-16 is a single-channel, voice, repeater which requires the use of FM.  That should be enough to logically categorize it as an FM satellite.  As for HO-68, I didn't add it to the list; it was already there.  Someone had the wrong OSCAR designator on the list, so I corrected it.  Also, Wikipedia is not an operational guide.  While operational information may be of interest to some readers, an article should not be written as an up-to-date how to guide.  There are other wiki projects detailed, current operational information would be appropriate for.  Finally, Wikipedia is comprehensive.  Just because a satellite is currently non-operational, that does not mean it should not be in the encyclopedia or article.  If a satellite is notable it should be listed, irregardless of whether it works.  If there is a section in the article about FM OSCARs, then all the notable satellites that were such should be on the list.  –Sparkgap (talk) 02:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok. Added Status column to make this section more useful to amateur radio operators that view this page. I can tell you that when I started working AO-51, the first thing I wondered was what other birds I could work with my FM HT equipment and handheld yagi. The first place I looked was wikipedia. Having an informative (as well as useful) section here would be a boon to operators. Although I disagree with AO-16 being in this list (read the heading for the FM birds section.. it does not apply to AO-16) & I disagree with the notion that if a repeater has one uplink FM and the other DSB-SC, then the repeater is "FM" (If there was a land based repeater with uplink FM & downlink D-Star, would you consider it FM repeater?) I will agree to leave it in. Added mode to frequency columns for ease of understanding. Also, added notes to talk about how often these repeaters are actually activated. I believe this falls under the heading of comprehensiveness while additionally adding to utility. The ISS FM repeater hasn't been activated in more than 2 years, for example. It still works, it's just not active. Perhaps another column to define how commonly the birds are active would be a cleaner way to portray this information. Maybe 3 or 4 degrees, from "Never"->"Rarely"->"Usually"->"Always"? Those are subjective terms, however. –Achra (talk) 19:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Amateur radio satellite
I propose that Amateur radio satellite be merged into OSCAR. There is a large degree of overlap between the two subjects, as OSCAR, in it's broader meaning, is another name for "amateur satellite". I do realize OSCAR originally referred to specific series of satellites; however, the term over time has become generalized, in a way similar to how "Kleenex" may refer to any brand facial tissue. Also, over the past decade, nearly every notable amateur satellite has been given an OSCAR designation number. Finally, I propose OSCAR as the destination article for the merger, as it's the more common name. –Sparkgap (talk) 01:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually Amateur radio satellite could simply be speedied as an unjustified content split - there is nothing in that article worth merging. I'm going to propose speedy deletion instead of a pointless merge. Roger (talk) 16:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There are many amateur radio satellites, which are not OSCARs (nor AMSAT satellites), therefore both articles are needed. --Cqdx (talk) 08:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But Amateur radio satellite as it is now contains nothing worth keeping. The OSCAR article could be moved to Amateur radio satellite because not all such satellites are actually assigned an OSCAR number and "amateur radio satellite" is the more "generic" term that includes the OSCARs and others. I don't think two separate articles are justified. Roger (talk) 08:58, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * OSCAR is merely one designation system for amateur radio satellites - Soviet/Russian satellites have RS-## (RadioSport) designations and then there are some amateur radio satellites which don't have any "group" designation at all (many of the Cubesats for example). The main article should be Amateur radio satellite - it can have sections on OSCAR-## and RS-## etc. The current OSCAR article should be moved to Amateur radio satellite and expanded to include the "non-OSCAR" satellites. Roger (talk) 08:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that there is an entire Category:Amateur radio satellites. --Cqdx (talk) 07:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Recommend elimination of this entry [amateur radio satellite] for above reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.219.69.131 (talk) 22:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Article has been merged into amateur radio satellite.
 * –Sparkgap (talk) 23:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)