Hi George,

I plan to fire up AO-16 early tomorrow (Saturday 10 May 2008) morning, around 1030 UTC. I'll collect some telemetry and if all looks nominal, I'll put it in voice mode in support of the Scout-O-Rama special event.

Perhaps the rest and reset will help our old girl behave properly!

I'll cc: the AMSAT-BB list so that folks are aware of the testing and of the special event. Hopefully you can accomplish a few AO-16 QSOs with the Scouts.

Good luck with your event!

General announcement to the list: If you hear AO-16 in voice mode, please feel free to use it. If you hear it "hummmming" in digital mode, please do not transmit to the satellite.

AO-16 Uplink: 145.920 MHz FM AO-16 Downlink: 437.0260 MHz DSB (LSB and USB)

73,

Mark N8MH AO-16 Command Station

At 01:21 PM 5/5/2008 -0500, you wrote:

Any chance that it will be available for use for the Scout-O-Rama Special Event station (K9BSA) this Saturday, 5/10?

George, KA3HSW

-----Original Message-----

...

From: "Mark L. Hammond" n8mh@embarqmail.com Sent: May 5, 2008 6:33 AM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] AO-16 currently silent and resting 11:15UTC 5May2008

Hello all,

The weekend presented a chance to gather some telemetry on AO-16. The telemetry looks nominal. Recently, the satellite seems to go silent on a nearly daily basis. Increasing eclipse periods remain a likely explanation, but we remain open to other explanations at this point.

To this end, I have turned AO-16 OFF for a few days to rest and ensure that its batteries will be given a chance to become fully charged. Following its several day rest period, we'll try to conduct more tests to better determine what type of operations that AO-16 is currently able to support.

Please do not transmit to AO-16 until further notice.

73 on behalf of the command team (and Happy Cinco de Mayo!),

Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]

Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]