The CCAS mourns the loss of Cliff Buttschardt who passed away July 30, 2006.
Cliff will be missed by many people who have known and worked with him.
His jovial manner and love for helping students with electronics work were outstanding.
Cliff is truly one of the shining lights in the Heaven.  Good bye to a wonderful friend.
Remembrances of Cliff . . .
http://www.eham.net/friends/displaystory/3187
and
http://projectoscar.net/OSCARPedia/index.php/K7RR

Last Update:  3-14-2005

For more current information see Cubesat Home and AMSAT Cubesat Launch Info

Cliff Buttschardt is a very interesting and pleasant person to work with.  His life has been dedicated to electrical engineering, including having been a professor of electrical engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.  One of Cliff's serious interests is rocketry and satellites, once having traveled 13 times to Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, California, in support of a single rocket launch for the University of South Africa.  

Something that Cliff is now heavily involved in is literally "out of this world", or what he and his team hopes will be.  He and other engineers from many different disciplines are volunteering their time to assist and coach a team of high school and college students in the CubeSAT program, operating out of Cuesta College, located just north of San Luis Obispo.  The program is operating under the direction of Cal Poly's PolySAT Project.  CubeSAT's mission is to design, manufacture, submit for launch, track and communicate with tiny satellites.  Each satellite is 10 centimeters square.  The plan is for the satellites to be launched from Vandenberg AFB.  The photos below are from the CubeSAT website.

At CCAS meetings Cliff provides fascinating accounts of the seat-of-the-pants efforts by the CubeSAT team members, who are working with state-of-the-art concepts and employing construction techniques that "push the envelope" in imagination, using whatever materials they can get their hands on.  Designing such a tiny satellite is a major undertaking and at times appears to almost be impossible.  Not only are they designing and building the satellites but the team is also designing and building the "launcher" that will propel the satellites into space once they reach orbit.   And the satellites must not rotate in any direction or else communication will not be possible.  This is an ambitious project, to say the least, that has the students and volunteer engineers working many hours to achieve their goal.

For more details and photos of this intriguing project, go to the CubeSAT website.

Bonus:  For folks who are interested in Ham Radio, Cliff is also a long-time HR operator.  His call sign is K7RR.  Cliff recently pointed out a new HR related website that deals with a unique HR site on the Channel Islands off the coast of California.  In Cliff's words:

"The following two links take you to photos of helicopter trips to the Channel Islands.  K6TZ is a site off of Santa Barbara accessible only by helicopter.  It has been maintained, built and operated by W1UUQ, good friend of many years---in fact 35 or so years when we both worked for Raytheon, Santa Barbara.  Also illustrated is profound cooperation between ham radio and commercial cellular sites, something of interest to the Cuesta College effort.  This is "professional ham radio" done by retired individuals wanting to contribute!"

Santa Cruz Island Helicopter Trip Photos:   2000   2002   2003