Hello,
I have been listening to RS-15 beacon for several years and it is still a mystery to me.
I have heard it turn on in less than 60 seconds of entering sunlight. It will also remain silent while in continuous sunlight for weeks.
My feeling is RS-15 is in a slow tumble with only some of its solar panels working. If it is in the right alignment with the sun, it will come on. I have noticed that the "beeps" seem to get longer the longer it stays on. Several years ago the "beep" seemed to be as long as the CW telemetry frame it used to transmit.
73, Armando, N8IGJ
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Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:15:03 +0100 From: "Mike Rupprecht" [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] RS-15 beacon signal To: "'amsat bb bb'" [email protected] Message-ID: 002501cac86a$09bd2600$1d377200$@de Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
All,
this morning I made some very interesting measurements of the beacon signal from RS-15.
Does anyone know the relationship between the length of the carrier and (presumably) the temperature?
The length varies between 1.5 seconds and sometimes over 20 seconds.
You can see some interesting graphs here: http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=13008
Thanks and 73,
Mike
DK3WN