Jan, That's precisely the conclusion I came to ... though I'm being e-mailed some wierd and wonderful 'theories' ... everything from the amount of illumination to the colour of my underpants on the days in question.
One of the problems is of course finding precise eclipse software (that is agreement with other softeware). The "trick" is to use three different ones and bat for an average.
(very! scientific ... he he he).
I've made an application for the documentation you mentioned but whether I'll manage to get my grubby little hands on it is another matter. I'll keep you posted.
In the words of the Wallies, Good on yer' mate, no worries!.
73 John. [email protected]
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] CC: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: Baa ba little lamb. Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 10:11:55 +0100
John,
Are you sure it’s not because there is now some eclipse time that is taking the bird down? It only takes a few seconds without a battery and the timer will be reset or come up random (I think it resets, as I recall). The way the orbit of the Earth around the sun works, the minimum eclipse duration for sun sync orbits should be on about February 10 and the maximum eclipse should be on about June 1. The orbit has drifted so far in the sunward direction (toward a 6 AM – 6 PM ascending node) that there may be no eclipse at all now (which is good) but, you would expect to have this problem you are describing more like in June than in September if it is due to eclipse. Curious! I suppose the timer could have failed but, it’s funny to think that it would fail after 31 years and other stuff would not have. There is nothing special about those two CMOS gates that would make that circuit any more prone to failure than any other that is still working. I’d rather suspect something with the power system driven by orbit changes. One power glitch would reset the timer.
Jan
From: John Hackett [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, 6 September 2007 9:00 AM
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Baa ba little lamb.
So much for the (convenient) 24 hours timer theory proffered in response to my previous mails regarding the timing of AO-7.
This is the 3rd consequtive day the 24 hour timer is *NOT* playing ball.
05/06 Septembert 2007.
TIME. ORBIT. MODE.
23:46 50133 B
23:51 50133 A
01:35 50135 A
01:36 50134 B
01:44 40135 A
I have received confirmation mails from AJ9K and K3SZH that
their log entries *ARE* correct.
As you Gentlemen on that side of the pond are wont to say ...
"go figure!".
Incidentally, the mode changes spell "baa ba" ... it couldn't be that AO-t thinks we're a veritable bunch (flock) of sheep?.
Just a thought.
73 John. [email protected]