[amsat-bb] Re: Less than lightening Results

[Andrew Glasbrenner]

> Maybe I am a little confused about what constitutes AO-7 being "in
> sunlight" but I work it at 10.00 to 11.00pm in darkness and it works fine!

Since AO-7's batteries have long ago given up the ghost, the electronics 
only run when there is sufficient power developed by the panels. If the 
footprint of the satellite touches the illuminated area on the ground, the 
satellite is illuminated also. Right now for both AO-7 and AO-51, that 
illumination is continuous, but very soon both will return to an eclipse 
every orbit. For AO-7, this means a reset of the 24 hour timer every orbit, 
and Mode B seems to be the most likely mode upon power up and 
reillumination. Until then the timer is more or less changing modes every 24 
hours between A and B.

The pattern is easy to see on http://oscar.dcarr.org/ .

Hope this helps clear things up some for the newer folks.

73, Drew KO4MA
AMSAT-NA VP Ops