It is generally done manually on the evening passes over the command stations in the US, which is 0000Z-0200Z of the specific date. But...sometimes things happen. We may wait an orbit to collect some further whole orbit telemetry. We may not get everything done in one pass to reconfigure completely. Last month I had a very pushy Verizon FIOS salesman that showed up 5 minutes before the pass that couldn't take a hint other than the door in his face.
I wish we could be more specific on exactly when the mode change occurs, but the simplest way is to just listen. If it's going to be delay for more than an orbit we'll generally let folks know via amsat-bb.
73, Drew KO4MA
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Mock" jeff@mock.com To: "AMSAT-BB" amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 1:37 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] AO-51 mode changes
When AO-51 changes modes, what time is the change generally done? For example, the schedule says that AO-51 will start broadcasting 9600 baud telemetry on 3/10 (today).
Is this done in the morning on the east coast, is it preprogrammed to happen at some specific UTC time, or what? When are these changes actually made? It would be nice if the schedule announcement had some additional precision, something like: on orbit-xyz during the pass over the abc groundstation, the mode switch is planned.
thanks, jeff AD6EO
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