It is with great pleasure that I personally welcome each of you to the 1999 AMSA T -NA AnnualMeeting and Space Symposium. This meeting continues a proud tradition that AMSA T started in theearly 1980s to provide an annual forum for amateur satellite enthusiasts to gather and share theirideas among like-minded friends and colleagues. And share they have. For it was at many suchprevious meetings that the very first ideas that would later be incorporated into a number of ourAMSAT satellites were exchanged. Many of the designs for these satellites were initially sketchedout at previous Space Symposiums, often on the back of hotel napkins or envelopes (and usually inthe "wee hours" ofthe morning!) In short, it is at AMSA T's Space Symposia where the true creativesprit ofour organization really flourishes.I am doubly proud to welcome you to San Diego this year because 1999 also marks AMSATNA's30th anniversary. The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT's full corporate name)was formed over thirty years ago, in March 1969, to carry on the work begun by Project OSCAR.And, by any measure, AMSA T's work since its founding has had a major impact on our world as weknow it, not just as Radio Amateurs, but as citizens of Planet Earth. For it was AMSA T'sexperimenters that helped the rest of the world's communication engineers perfect the idea of a"satellite transponder", a device that, in its modem day form, now relays television pictures,telephone calls and, yes, even that modem-day miracle, Internet traffic, from faraway places viasatellite (and in near-real time) into our homes and offices.
展开▼
