Hello All,
As expected, over the last few days AO-16 has started to again experience "shutdowns". Thanks to your updates at the very handy webpage at http://oscar.dcarr.org/ it seems that the first shutdown occurred between 28 Nov 2008 2030 UTC and 29 Nov 2008 0615 UTC.
So far I've restarted the bird three times, and each time it appears to stay up for a day or more. We can expect the situation to worsen, as the eclipse periods get longer and the satellite temperatures continue to go down. We've been warning you :) Get those AO-16 contacts in now!
I'll try to restart AO-16 as my schedule allows. Your reports to the OSCAR Satellite Status page by KD5QGR are very helpful; it helps me know when the bird is down so that I can do my best to restart it. Based on the times of the passes lately, it's difficult to be available when the bird is above the horizon.
If the birds is operational in voice mode, you should clearly hear the "not-so-repressed carrier" on the downlink. Special request--if you do not hear the carrier, please do not transmit to AO-16, as your transmissions make it difficult to command the satellite. And, if you hear the "hummmming" of the PSK transmitting, again please do not attempt to transmit to the bird; it's likely that I have restarted the bird and need to collect telemetry before configuring it into voice mode.
Thanks to all you faithful AO-16 operators!
Current operational mode for AO-16 (as available!):
Mode FM Voice Repeater ( Downlink is DSB) Uplink : 145.9200 MHz FM Downlink 437.0260 MHz SSB
73,