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
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From: John Hackett [mailto:archie.hackett@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 6 September 2007 9:00 AM To: Eu-amsat@yahoogroups.com Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org; allan_gm1sxx@hotmail.com; jking@eclipticenterprises.com; sv1bsx@yahoo.gr; k3szh@netzero.net 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. la2qaa@amsat.org