Allen, A pleasure to 'meet' you and have the opportunity to thank you for confirming mode-B for AO-7's orbit 50159.

Very much appreciated Allen.

I'm currently discussing the relays used 31 years ago, with the chief design engineer, J King ... (which are 'latching' and which are not) ... since, as I'm sure you're aware, this, together with the illumination could also play a part in the mode on/off/on/off sequence.

Last year, when I first 'tagged' the 24 hour timer the satellite was in constant illumination ... this time, it's a little more 'debatable' ... (different software packages) ... hence this year's musings re: the mode and when it changes.

Last year I established it to be it on or around 08:30 drifting to 09:00. At present, it appears to be 01:45 to 02:00 ... which in itself is rather interesting.

I hope you don't mind me CC'ing this mail to Joe K3SZH, Mak SV1BSX and a few other interested parties.

I'll do my best to keep the log up to date Allen.

Thank you again for your response.

73 John. la2qaa@amsat6.org ....................................................................................

Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2007 09:51:23 -0500 To: la2qaa@amsat.org From: afmattis@hal-pc.org Subject: AO-07 orbit 50159

< It would be interesting if you could confirm which mode AO-7 was in at 01:28 on orbit 51059 Allen.

John:

AO-07 was in Mode B. My uplink was 70cm and downlink was 2m. I heard myself loud and clear on 145.942 for about 7 minutes. I also heard a little SSB up near 145.953 but didn't listen long enough to get the call sign. I had the usual fade out when the bird moved north of me at mid-pass. Many of us in the US with omni-directional antennas can only get in when the bird is south of us.

Thank you for the work you are doing to gather data to try to figure out the mode change pattern. Also thank you for correcting my entries - I usually check my entries and make a correction if needed but we had house guests yesterday and I did not have time.

Allen

At 01:33 PM 9/8/2007 +0200, you wrote:

...

Allen, I have taken the liberty of correcting your AO-7 log entry on orbit 50159.

You entered the mode as 'OFF' but at the same time commented your heard your own downlink ... therefore the mode must have been 'ON' in either A,B or C ... and since the other stations logged in mode-B before and after you heard your downlink I presume the satellite was in mode- B at the time ... unless anything untoward was happening.

You mentioned ... "called CQ CW 145.942 ... which in fact suggests mode-A between two periods of mode-B on the same orbit. It appears this also happened two days ago, it is quite unusual for AO-7 to switch twice on the same orbit.

It would be interesting if you could confirm which mode AO-7 was in at 01:28 on orbit 51059 Allen.

Thank you.

73 John. la2qaa@amsat.org AO-7 Resource Page Admin: