Hi Auke,
I'm sure - that's not PEHUENSAT. There is only an alkaline battery on board and transmission stops end of January.
73, Mike DK3WN
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] Im Auftrag von Auke de Jong, VE6PWN Gesendet: Samstag, 10. November 2007 19:05 An: AMSAT-BB Betreff: [amsat-bb] Po-63
I would like to draw attention to a unique occurance that I have noticed today and last night... I was sitting on 144.200.0 usb with spectran running on the compy for no good reason, when suddenly i noticed a carrier sweeping down through my scope. By itself, this would be nothing special, BUT I recognized a pattern: the sweep rate was not linear, but resembled that of doppler-shift from a passing LEO satellite! it started out at one rate, then got faster as it passed through my IF, and past zero-beat. I retuned down, and continued to observe it become slower, finally fading-out rather abruptly while still sweeping down at a slower rate.
I could not find any reason why any terrestrial signal might do this, so I looked through my list of sats on Orbitron, to see if there was any hardware that had passed recently. I noticed that "PEHUENSAT-1[+]" had JUST LOS my horizon on it's ascending orbit, and had been almost directly overhead a few minutes before. I made a mental note, and decided to check again on a future pass to see if it happened again, just to rule-out other possibilities.
Sure enough, this morning on orbit # 4414, I was again, monitoring 144.200.0 usb and doing other tasks when I looked over at the PC and saw the same pattern. A check of Orbitron, showed that PO-63 just SO happens to be almost LOS decending from overhead.
This brings a question which begs to be answered: How can this signal seem to be coming from this satellite? As far I as I can tell by searching google, the satellite is no longer functioning. could it be a reflection of a terrestrial signal, or could it be generated somehow by a malfunctioning onboard transmitter?
I would like to hear from others about comparable observations or other insight.
Thanks, Auke, VE6PWN DO33 _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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