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Prof
Kasser
mixes his profession with his hobby and sees many similarities between
systems engineering and amateur radio. He is an active amateur radio
operator. He received his first call sign G8BTB almost 40 years ago, and
after upgrading to G3ZCZ operated briefly as ON8IK, F0WN and
W8/G3ZCZ, and then for many years as W3/G3ZCZ, 4X/G3ZCZ and VK5WU. He has
a history of experimentation and innovation, including:
- He designed a hardware-based Self Operating
Radioteletypwriter Contest Amateur Radio Station (SORCARS
) in 1972 and
programmed it into LanLink years later.
The QSO machine performed unassisted (but not
unattended) in the 1990 ARRL RTTY contest, and did
not come last in its section!
- He was
one of the initial group of experimenters to receive a special permit
from the US Federal Communications Commission to transmit and receive
ASCII over the air when packet radio and other modern digital modes were
not even a gleam in their experimenter's eyes.
- He
claims the first OSCAR contact from a vehicle in motion when he and Art
Feller, W4ART, communicated via AMSAT-OSCAR 6 while driving through
Silver Spring in suburban Maryland which is about 10 miles up the road
from the White House.
He
served as AMSAT's publications editor
for more than 15 years, and over the years has authored three books on
amateur radio, a number of articles in QST, 73,
Ham Radio, RadCom, and other publications in the UK, US, and
Australia. As well as writing and editing articles, he also writes
software for amateur radio and is the author of several programs including
Whats Up, CQ-SS
and
LanLink which was flown on the space
shuttle mission STS-35 and featured on a cover of QST.
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Awards
- International
Council on Systems Engineering (
INCOSE) Fellow, July 2006.
- Best Paper, Systems Engineering
Technical Processes track, at the 16th Annual Symposium
of the INCOSE, 2006, and the 17th Annual Symposium of the
INCOSE, 2007.
- United States Air Force (USAF)
Office of Scientific
Research Window on Science program visitor
, 2004.
- Inaugural
SEEC "Bust a Gut" Award, SEEC, 2004.
- Employee
of the Year, SEEC, 2000.
- Distance
Education Fellow, University System of Maryland, 1998-2000.
- Outstanding
Paper Presentation, Systems Engineering Management track, at
the 6th Annual Symposium of the INCOSE, 1996.
- Distinguished
Service Award, Institute of Certified Professional Managers (ICPM),
1993.
- Manned
Space Flight Awareness Award (Silver
Snoopy)
for quality and technical excellence, for performing and directing
systems engineering, NASA, 1991.
- Goddard Space Flight Center
Community Service Award, NASA, 1990.
- The
E3 award for Excellence, Endurance and Effort, Radio Amateur Satellite
Corporation (AMSAT), 1981, and three subsequent awards for outstanding
performance.
- Letters
of commendation and certificates of appreciation from employers and
satisfied customers including the: Defence Materiel Organisation,
University of South Australia, Systems Engineering Society of Australia
(SESA), United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM), University
System of Maryland, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Loral
Corporation, Luz Industries, Communications Satellite Corporation
(Comsat), American Society for Quality (ASQ), Association for Quality
and Participation (AQP), the Wireless Institute of Australia, and the
American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
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