Morning All,
This isn't a rant but...
One of the principles of AR licensing is the point of using it for technical self development, be it of skills, hardware, software, RF tech etc. We have been given access to a prize resource aboard a commercial comsat with the two transponders (nb/wb).
IMHO we should be setting excellent examples of signal quality / purity, and of excellent operating practices. To see what I mean, have a look at some of the signals from Saturday last weekend;

If you take the standard SSB as 3KHz bandwidth, or even Hi-Fi SSB at 4KHz you can easily see that there are some nasty signals, most likely caused by over-driving transverters, excessive use of compression, far too much mike gain etc. Some of the signals might be comparable to 'Zetagi 27MHz' equipment but we should be doing better than this by monitoring our own TX signals and ensuring they are clean and presentable before connecting our transmit equipment to an antenna; it is clear that ops have and do use the transponder as 'free test equipment'. Certainly in the UK one of the licensing stipulations is that you have equipment to receive on the frequency you transmit on, so it is very easy to monitor your own TX signal for quality / purity etc.
I did stop using my FT897 noise generator after being horrified at the atrocious signal quality / PLL noise / broadband PA noise being emitted on transmit, it gave me sleepless nights so its been fixed through replacement.
Is the behaviour possible to modify, probably not, but poor signals being excreted from badly set up ground stations might eventually cause issues for the satellite operator, who after all has a commercial platform to concentrate on.
We can do better!
regards,
Paul M0EYT.