OSCAR-11 REPORT 27 April 2011

This report covers the period from 02 March to 27 April 2011 . During this time the satellite has been heard from 03 to 13 March, 24 March to 03 April, 13 April to 23 April 2011. It is expected to switch-on again 04 May until 14 May.

Excellent signals have been reported from stations located around the world, and good copy obtained from decoded telemetry frames.

Transmissions are controlled by the watchdog timer, which has a 20.7 day cycle time, 10.35 days on, 10,35 days off. Solar eclipses occur during every orbit, when signals are weaker. This indicates that there is still some capacity remaining in the battery.

The on-board clock is now very stable. It gained 12 seconds during during the current reporting period. This is comparable with its accuracy when the satellite was fully operational, when it gained approximately one minute per year. However, there is still an accumulated loss of 309 days, which has occurred during eclipses of the last few years.

The VHF beacon frequency is 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry

Reception reports have been received from Horatio CX8AF, Jerry WB5LHD and Stefano IZ1GRJ. Many thanks.

At the present time, while OSCAR-11 is operating in a predictable way, I no longer need direct reports or files by e-mail. However, could all listeners continue to enter their reports on the general satellite status website http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php. This is a very convenient and easy to use facility, which shows the current status of all the amateur satellites, and is of use to everyone. Reports around the expected times of switch-on and switch-off are of special interest, especially for times 12:00 - 17:00 and 22:00 - 07:00 UTC, to when the satellite is out-of-range in the UK.

A longer version of this report report is available on my website, and new listeners to OSCAR-11 should read this for further information. The URL is www.g3cwv.co.uk/oscar11.htm . This page contains a links to the longer report, a short audio clip to help you identify the satellite and a file of the last telemetry received. The website also contains an archive of news & telemetry data which is updated from time to time, and details about using a soundcard or hardware demodulators for data capture. There is also software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry.

If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network, please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT155.CWV, to prevent duplication.

73 Clive G3CWV xxxxx@amsat.org (please replace the x's by g3cwv)