Hello AO-51 users,
This afternoon 27 May 2011 AO-51 stayed ON for a full orbit. This caught both me and Drew KO4MA quite by surprise. It is completely unexpected. Had both of us not been there, we wouldn't have believed it....
KO4MA put it into repeater mode around 2000utc. When it came back over around 2145utc it was still up and in repeater mode!! We changed to digital mode to collect some telemetry and have left it in digital mode.
**WE NEED REPORTS** in case it remains on next orbit (neither of us get another pass until tomorrow).
You can listen on 435.150 MHz for the digital signal. IF you have 9600 baud packet and TLMEcho, you might be able to grab some telemetry that will be useful for us.
Stay tuned! This might be a fluke, or it might be a good sign...
Please send your email reports to the list and directly to us using our callsigns AT AMSAT.org.
73,
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]