SO-50 Suffers 2m Interference

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Amateur Radio satellite, SO-50, operating over North America, has suffered communication issues due to a terrestrial station operating on 145.850 Mhz, the same as the uplink frequency for SO-50.

The interfering station appears to be located in South-Eastern United States

As per US Band Plan, the segment between 145.800 - 146.00 MHZ is allocated for amateur satellite communication.

Interference to satellites can be caused by simplex communications, repeater links, or Echolink/IRLP nodes

White House Pushes for more Tiny Satellites

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NASA and other agencies are giving microsatellites the resources they need to thrive.

Being less expensive and easier to deploy than the giant satellites of old, and housing advantaged technology to increase coverage, government agencies, led by NASA have launched an initiative to provide more resources to increase the number of launches.

NASA providing up to $30 million toward purchasing data collected by satellite groups, along with creating a Small Spacecraft Virtual Institute that will offer know-how to organizations.

Other projects see the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarding Planet a $20 million contract for a fleet of small satellites that can capture images of "at least" 85 percent of the planet every 15 days.

More inforamtion - https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/22/white-house-small-satellite-initiative/

GeoSync Ham Radio Satellite

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Gary Pearce KN4AQ has released the video of the Digital Communications Conference presentation about the AMSAT payload for a geosynchronous satellite 

AMSAT-NA is developing a “hosted payload” for a spacecraft that Millennium Space Systems (MSS) of El Segundo, California, is under contract to design, launch, and operate for the US government. 

The satellite’s potential footprint could extend over the US from the Mid-Pacific to Africa.

The amateur radio payload will comprise a Software Defined Transponder capable of supporting many different modes, including analog SSB.

What does a geosynchronous orbit look like? - https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/na-gso-sat/

“We’ve been hearing about a Geosynchronous satellite for the Western Hemisphere for a while now, but not many details. In this episode from the DCC, project leader Bob McGwier N4HY fills in a lot of blanks. There’s no launch date yet, and maybe not quite enough info to start building your ground station (a ‘Five & Dime’ setup - 5 GHz up, 10 GHz down), but you can start thinking about it.”
— Gary Pearce KN4AQ