John,

Alan Kung, BA1DU and CEO of CAMSAT was one of the speakers at the Dayton AMSAT Forum. He reported that HO-68 is suffering from a bad relay or relay driver that is used to switch from the beacon to the transponder. The likelihood of recovery is low, but not zero.

Here is the explanation from Alan's slide. These are exact quotes, not my interpretation: -- The current situation is the transponders will be difficult to switch the RF PA from beacon mode to transponder mode

-- The RF relay or its drive circuit is failing, it is a stick relay. Probability of success of switch is probably a few tenth

-- On the other hand, up to now the both solar and lithium-ion batteries are in very nice condition

-- The exhibitions of the thermal-control, onboard flight computer and TT&C are also excellent.

73, Steve N9IP -- -----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of John Mac Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 5:06 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] HO-68

Hi all...

I am wondering with the lack of Operational Satellites up at the moment.....what is actually wrong with HO-68...

All I could find out is that it had a scheduling problem, so what does this mean...its hardware or software...?

With the limited life of these birds I would think they would implement something to at least get part of it working...if at all possible.

John