Drew, the only difference I detected in the 0029 utc pass over Western US was the polarity changes. Almost thought I was on SO-50 instead of AO-51. Had to keep the hand on the reversal switch. Heard acouple of other comments about it too during the pass. Signal strength here on the West Coast seemed to be the same as before.
John W6ZKH
I have to agree with John...significant increase in the polarity switching noticed both on the US west coast pass last night (02-Dec-09 0158) and this morning (03-Dec-09 1417). This morning's pass required a lot of switching...some of it back-to-back (10 seconds between switching). Also, it took a long time to acquire the bird and I lost it early as well.
For the sake of full disclosure, I've only been running polarity switches since Thanksgiving day but in that time I've worked AO-51 several times and the need to switch polarity has been minimal.
73, David
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 7:43 AM To: amsat-bb Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: AO-51 magnet reversal tonight
Drew, the only difference I detected in the 0029 utc pass over Western US was the polarity changes. Almost thought I was on SO-50 instead of AO-51. Had to keep the hand on the reversal switch. Heard acouple of other comments about it too during the pass. Signal strength here on the West Coast seemed to be the same as before.
John W6ZKH
_______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. 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
David Wing wrote:
I have to agree with John...significant increase in the polarity switching noticed both on the US west coast pass last night (02-Dec-09 0158) and this morning (03-Dec-09 1417). This morning's pass required a lot of switching...some of it back-to-back (10 seconds between switching). Also, it took a long time to acquire the bird and I lost it early as well.
We are still sifting through the telemetry, but as Tom suggested in his email, the satellite is precessing (wobbling) quite severely. This will calm down as the hysteresis rods do their job. Initial reports from Australia and New Zealand indicate stronger signals, and about the same from South Africa. There are some peculiar things about the magnetic field near South Africa, so that doesn't surprise me too much, but is worth digging into once we get the telemetry down.
73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT-NA VP Operations
With two usable passes over ZL last night the most notable feature was the frequent polarity shifts. Certainly good strong signals but difficult to tell how it compares to previous signal levels.
73 Alan ZL2BX
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andrew Glasbrenner Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2009 16:43 To: David Wing Cc: 'amsat-bb' Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: AO-51 magnet reversal tonight
David Wing wrote:
I have to agree with John...significant increase in the polarity switching noticed both on the US west coast pass last night (02-Dec-09 0158) and
this
morning (03-Dec-09 1417). This morning's pass required a lot of switching...some of it back-to-back (10 seconds between switching). Also, it took a long time to acquire the bird and I lost it early as well.
We are still sifting through the telemetry, but as Tom suggested in his email, the satellite is precessing (wobbling) quite severely. This will calm down as the hysteresis rods do their job. Initial reports from Australia and New Zealand indicate stronger signals, and about the same from South Africa. There are some peculiar things about the magnetic field near South Africa, so that doesn't surprise me too much, but is worth digging into once we get the telemetry down.
73, Drew KO4MA AMSAT-NA VP Operations _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. 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
participants (4)
-
Alan Cresswell -
Andrew Glasbrenner -
David Wing -
w6zkh＠comcast.net