Hi Drew & all,

I'm not 100% sure how the software uploads take place, however I have a suggestion.

Would there be any benefit having one uplink station on the west coast and another on the East coast, purely to allow the complete upload to take place before an eclipse?

Perhaps the users of AO-51 would donate to a road-trip fund to send one of the command stations /portable to a location of benefit to assist ?

Just trying to think outside the box :-)

good luck with the uploads,

73

Pete

2i0VAX

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 1:31 PM, Andrew Glasbrenner glasbrenner@mindspring.com wrote:

All,

We are having a difficult time trying to restore AO-51 to operation. Currently, the satellite will not retain the upload of the flight software across eclipse. The batteries are in very poor condition. We have a few more things to try, but with eclipses peaking around July at ~27 minutes, the long term situation is grim. There is a brief period around November where eclipses are as short as 16 minutes, but past that it is a long climb to 30 minutes or longer eclipses for many years. We have no expected "return to service" date. If you have 9k6 digital capability, you can listen in on our attempts at recovery on 435.150 on many passes over the US.

Please support AMSAT-NA and the other AMSAT groups around the world, and help us get new satellites into orbit. Projects like Fox, FunCube, P3E, and Kiwisat need your financial support to keep our amateur satellite fleet flying.

73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT-NA VP Operations

---

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With the recent bad news about AO51, possibly for the long term, I know several are wondering about HO68's status. Does anyone have any sort of update on when/if it will be back in service? I understand it may have long term issues like AO51 may have, but it would be nice to at least know where it stands - even if there is no hope of it coming back anytime soon. I have seen this question posted many times here on the -bb, but I have never seen an answer, unless I overlooked it.

73,

Zack KD8KSN

-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Glasbrenner Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 8:31 AM To: amsat-bb Subject: [amsat-bb] AO-51 troubles

All,

We are having a difficult time trying to restore AO-51 to operation. Currently, the satellite will not retain the upload of the flight software across eclipse. The batteries are in very poor condition. We have a few more things to try, but with eclipses peaking around July at ~27 minutes, the long term situation is grim. There is a brief period around November where eclipses are as short as 16 minutes, but past that it is a long climb to 30 minutes or longer eclipses for many years. We have no expected "return to service" date. If you have 9k6 digital capability, you can listen in on our attempts at recovery on 435.150 on many passes over the US.

Please support AMSAT-NA and the other AMSAT groups around the world, and help us get new satellites into orbit. Projects like Fox, FunCube, P3E, and Kiwisat need your financial support to keep our amateur satellite fleet flying.

73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT-NA VP Operations

_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb