[amsat-bb] Loosing the north!!!

[Luc Leblanc]

Again my Alfa Spid AZ rotor act again yesterday evening it loose his north setting as it is electronicly set with the control box. Very 
easy to reset but in the middle of a snow storm (25cm) i was unable to find something to point the beam physically to the north.

At the same time there was an AO-51 pass i adjust the rotor to an estimated north and i follow the whole pass manually writing down the 
real calculated azimuth and the one i got from a maximum signal swinging the rotor back an forth.

I make another pass doing the same operation to fined tuned my pointing and today on the 1549 EDT pass i was able to get the satelllite at 
1 degrees AOS ans LOS!! signal was S7 most of the time and reaching S9 near TCA?

I don't know if AO-51 is still pointing towards the southern hemisphere but i notice only one deep fade and signal was much better than the 
first attitude change days and i think he never was so strong?

I'm guessing my "scientific" previous north pointing was bad or my UHF beam is shooting not towards he point? I'm always using automatic AZ 
tracking could be i was shooting aside of the target for a while...

Just try this on a pass could be you will be astonish too? 

If AO-51 was returned back to his normal attitude i will have to reavaluate all of what i wrote above.
"-"


Luc Leblanc VE2DWE
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