ABOUT THE AUTHORS.

John Alan Hackett, LA2QAA, a British expatriate presently residing in Norway, ‘caught the bug’ while operating a tele-printer as part of the United Nations peacekeeping force on Cyprus in 1967. After completing a tour of duty in NATO, Oslo .. and becoming a civilian with a 9 to 5 job .. the lack of radio ‘hum’ at night ensured he soon became an ‘amateur radio operator’.

Several years of Amateur radio tele-type, QRP CW operations and ‘a handful’ of DXCC's for various modes provided the ‘background’ and the incentive to climb a little further up the ladder. He turned his attention - and antennas! .. to the sky. Starting out as many before .. with mode A on the RS series of satellites and steadily progressing up to modes B, J and S. on the more exotic birds. John is completely self taught and has become an experienced operator on all current analogue satellites and is therefore well able to pass the benefit of his experience to potential newcomers to satellite operating. He was a regular contributor to OSCAR NEWS and THE AMSAT JOURNAL with his OBSERVATIONS FROM NORWAY articles as well as several constructional articles aimed at the potential newcomer.

According to John .....’in 30 years of operating radio ... nothing ever captured my interest as much as satellites’.

Allan Copland, GM1SXX, a native of Paisley, Scotland is an ICT Engineer working in the further education sector. He caught the radio bug as a youngster after discovering that fixing up old valve radios from jumble sales and ‘selling them on’ to friends and neighbours was a great way to supplement his pocket money. After wondering for a while why there were lots of ‘donald duck’ noises on short-wave, he eventually discovered amateur radio. Just like John, he is largely self taught and currently playing with microwave communications, embedded control systems and DIY rotators. He likes to dabble in experimental hardware. UoSAT2 telemetry was his introduction to satellites in 1984 using a BBC computer  to decode the telemetry from this amazing 'old lady' of space. He has written a few pieces of software in support of his hobby.

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