[amsat-bb] Re: AO51 weak sig

[Mark L. Hammond]

Hi Folks,

Easy said, easy done--with undesirable results....increasing the power
much from where we are right now would likely cause the batteries to
drop low enough to shut the bird OFF in an orbit or two.   Not quite
the outcome you had in mind, I suspect...

We are where we are.  It's all about power budget and managing what
power we have, in the circumstances we have.  That is, we are in full
sunlight.  But that doesn't mean we can increase the power on 435.300.
 In fact, we've had to reduce it.  There are limitations due to
deteriorating batteries, RFI effects (receiver desense) when the TX
power is high, battery temperatures, sun angle, nutation, and the list
goes on and on.  It's a balancing act, and right now the bird is
pretty well balanced.  The trade off is that we're down a couple
hundred mW on the 435.300 transmitter.    It's currently running about
450 mW.  It might go up a little bit before the end of the current
full illumination period (which ends Jan 1st or so), but time will
tell.  We'll continue to nudge it up as the illumination angles
improve.  But it might get worse before the illumination period is
over...

I'm attending the AMSAT Symposium in October.  I'll be happy to sit
around and try to explain in person and in greater detail all that
we're trying to accomplish and work around, but it's honestly more
than I have time to type out....so come to the symposium and hear it
first hand :)

It's always a good time to work on improving the receiver
sensitivities of our stations :)

In the words of a famous Scotsman--"We're givin' 'er all she's got, Captain!"

73,

Mark N8MH



On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:28 AM, Roger Kolakowski <Rogerkola at aol.com> wrote:
> WOW! Please?
>
> Roger  WA1KAT
>
> On 9/9/2010 10:01 AM, wa4hfn at comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>
>> Whats up with AO51  I can just tell that it is there .Little to no signal ?
>>
>> up the output some
>>
>> WA4HFN Damon
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-- 
Mark L. Hammond [N8MH]