I wasn't refering to the rideshare. I was talking about the transponder. I even said "include a clone of the QO-100 transponder". I guess you missed that sentence.
So whenever it is that Amsat-NA or another Amsat gets an opportunity to put up a microwave transponder, they might not need to design a new one... a successfully proven, reliable, and state of the art design exists and is in use right now in QO-100: it has 2.4 GHz up, 10 GHz down, works well, and the multi-sourced affordable ground equipment does voice, cw, data. Only problem is that, as a GEO, it only covers Europe, Asia, and Africa. So it would be nice if North and South American hams also had something just like that so we could enjoy the satellite on microwaves as much as our ham colleagues overseas are doing.
But then there is the Amsat Five and Dime, 5 GHz up, 10 GHz down for Amsat-NA's Golf-TEE and Golf-1. I see Jerry N0JY's slide presentation on Microwaves in future satellites from May 2020 online, but there was no mention at all of QO-100 in the presentation, even though QO-100 had been in orbit for a year and a half already and operating magnificently.
Is the "Five and Dime" transponder different from QO-100 just to be different? It seems so. In my business, we call that "Not invented here".
Granted, maybe the QO-100 transponder only works well on a GEO with no Doppler, but if that's the case, then how can Five an Dime tolerate it either, unless it's exclusively digital with some form of compensation? If Five and Dime is exclusively digital with no CW or SSB modes, then that's another discussion altogether....
73, Ed