On Sat, 2011-04-23 at 13:37 -0700, Kevin Deane wrote:
I may be wrong in my opinion, but I dont see why we cant use FM other than to keep usage down? I hope everyone dosent freak out, as this seems to be "Taboo"
It would be technically okay if the linear sats were still healthy with nice new batteries and shiny clean solar panels. They're not, though, and the continuous FM carrier could well pull the power bus down beyond the point where the satellite becomes uncontrollable.
They're all a bit fragile now; even AO-51 is getting a bit reluctant now that it's passing into long periods of eclipse. For us Earth-dwellers it's cheap and easy to replace batteries every two years, but for those little satellites it's much harder. You'd have to catch them, for a start...
Gordon MM0YEQ