Hello Everyone,
I have taken the information from Ib, OZ1MY and plugged it into SatPC32
and starting on May 21, 2013 at approximately 1346UTC, AO7 will start
going into brief eclipse periods as it approaches the coast of
Antarctica. Based on my observations these eclipses will increase in
duration until they reach a peak around the Summer equinox and then they
will start to taper off until the last eclipse occurs at approximately
0245UTC on August 2, 2013.
If the past is any indication of future events, this could mean erratic
behavior from AO7. Last year for an extended period of time, AO7 was
coming up in Mode B every day. I do not know of any rhyme or reason to
which mode it may come up in but I plan to monitor AO7 close this year
to see if we have another extended "Mode B" period.
I will try to keep the StarCom BB up to date on the status of AO7 during
this time. I would suppose the worst case scenario would be if we had an
extended "Mode A" condition.
The dates are 05/21/2013 until 08/02/2013 the eclipse's start at 15 to
20 second periods up to about 3 minutes in duration at their peak. I am
not sure how much total loss of sunlight is required cause the satellite
to start acting differently, I know the batteries are totally gone but I
do not know if there is any type capacitive storage that may retain a
voltage in critical systems on the satellite. If anyone has any
information on that I would be interested.
That is my AO7 status report for now! Stay Tuned!
73 All FRM;
K4FEG
EM55aj84ta
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