AO-51 Control Team members, you are amazing! Thank you!

73's Peter VE7NGP

Thanks guys. It's truly great to have a team like we have in the AO-51 command team.

Let me relate a few things about AO-51 and where we are headed.

Cell 3 has reversed, or shorted. Without the ability to record WOD through eclipse, we can't tell for sure. Personally I think it has reversed, but regardless, the computer that runs AO-51 crashes every eclipse now. We are reloading the small housekeeping program stored on the satellite from ROM each pass, then turning the repeater on, setting the modulation level and turning the power down. We are working on automating this process, and when that is done, we'll expand the geographical areas. It's going to take time, and there is the distinct possibility that further deterioration may occur before we can get everything in place, and what little ops we have left will cease. Right now the repeater is only being enabled on afternoon passes over the US, as a command station is available. However, we are letting it stay on past our LOS, so stations in Asia may hear it active still on the descending morning passes there.

Over the weekend, I was not able to attend the Dayton hamfest :-( . I wanted to make sure the satellite was available for the AMSAT demonstrations there by Keith, Roger, and Mark, but I was also not going to be home! Most of the passes were enabled via a combination of remoting in to my home station via an Iphone and Logmein Ignition, and listening off the air while parked in various rural North Florida locations. This was a challenge, especially outside of wifi and 3G service!

Further complicating the issue is the repeater in the Louisville KY area operating on the 145.88 uplink. This necessitated the change on the fly to 145.920 up, as the repeater was drowning out the demo guys at Dayton. Fortunately we have some excellent help in tracking this down, so Mark, Kevin, and I can concentrate on keeping the repeater running. If you know who is responsible for this repeater, please let us know. We've not gotten a solid ID from it, but it has a digital voice ID, a morse S courtesy tone, and a PL of 91.5. It may be a link, but is likely a repeater output.

Just a quick update to let everyone know where we stand.

73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT-NA VP Operations

PS Thanks for all the donations for Fox and Arissat over the last week! If you haven't yet donated, drop by www.amsat.org, or call Martha at 1 888 322 6728 today and help us get Fox in space.