[amsat-bb] Re: Po-63

[Mike Rupprecht]

Hi Auke,

I'm sure - that's not PEHUENSAT. 
There is only an alkaline battery on board and transmission stops end of
January.

73, Mike
DK3WN 





-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] Im
Auftrag von Auke de Jong, VE6PWN
Gesendet: Samstag, 10. November 2007 19:05
An: AMSAT-BB
Betreff: [amsat-bb] Po-63

I would like to draw attention to a unique occurance that I have noticed
today and last night... 
I was sitting on 144.200.0 usb with spectran running on the compy for no
good reason, when suddenly i noticed a carrier sweeping down through my
scope.  By itself, this would be nothing special, BUT I recognized a
pattern: the sweep rate was not linear, but resembled that of doppler-shift
from a passing LEO satellite!  it started out at one rate, then got faster
as it passed through my IF, and past zero-beat.  I retuned down, and
continued to observe it become slower, finally fading-out rather abruptly
while still sweeping down at a slower rate.  

I could not find any reason why any terrestrial signal might do this, so I
looked through my list of sats on Orbitron, to see if there was any hardware
that had passed recently.  I noticed that "PEHUENSAT-1[+]" had JUST LOS my
horizon on it's ascending orbit, and had been almost directly overhead a few
minutes before.  I made a mental note, and decided to check again on a
future pass to see if it happened again, just to rule-out other
possibilities.  

Sure enough, this morning on orbit # 4414, I was again, monitoring 144.200.0
usb and doing other tasks when I looked over at the PC and saw the same
pattern.  A check of Orbitron, showed that PO-63 just SO happens to be
almost LOS decending from overhead.  

This brings a question which begs to be answered: How can this signal seem
to be coming from this satellite?  As far I as I can tell by searching
google, the satellite is no longer functioning.  could it be a reflection of
a terrestrial signal, or could it be generated somehow by a malfunctioning
onboard transmitter?

I would like to hear from others about comparable observations or other
insight.  

Thanks,
Auke, VE6PWN
DO33
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