[amsat-bb] OSCAR-11 Report

[Clive Wallis]

              OSCAR-11 REPORT   29 December 2011

This report covers the period from 01 September to 28
December 2011. The satellite has continued to operate in a
very predictable way since the last report, and no changes
have been observed. During this time the satellite has been
heard reliably during its ten-day transmission periods.
Excellent signals have been reported from stations located
around the world, and good copy obtained from decoded
telemetry frames.

The easiest way to check whether OSCAR-11 is operational is
to look at the General Satellite Status website
http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php . You can also calculate
the operating schedule from the last switch-off time, which
was 28 December 2011 at 15:00 UTC (approx), using 10.35 days
off followed by 10.35 days on.

Reception reports have been received from Gustavo LW2DTZ,
Bob KI0G, Rolf HB9TSO and Francesco IT9JRU.  Many thanks to
all and those who posted to the status website.

The satellite is currently in eclipse during all evening
passes over the UK, resulting in lower signal strengths at
these times.  Owing to the gradual precession of the orbit,
the season for eclipses of the evening passes is longer
this year compared with the winter last year.

The on-board clock continues to gain, 28 seconds during the
current reporting period, and 112 seconds since regular
transmissions were resumed at the end of August 2010. There is
however a large accumulated error of 308.54303 days slow.
This was caused mainly by the clock stopping during
eclipses, when there was also an unknown drain on the power
supply. The units of the least significant digit correspond
approximately to seconds (0.86 seconds actually).

The VHF beacon frequency is 145.826 MHz.  AFSK FM ASCII
Telemetry. The satellite is operating in the default mode,
with a cycle time of 20.7 days. 10.35 days on followed by
10.35 days off.

At the present time, while OSCAR-11 is operating in a
predictable way, I no longer need direct reports or files by
e-mail. However, could all listeners continue to enter their
reports on the general satellite status website. This is a
very convenient and easy to use facility, which shows the
current status of all the amateur satellites, and is of use
to everyone. Reports around the expected times of switch-on
and switch-off are of special interest, especially for times
12:00 - 18:00 and 22:00 - 07:00 UTC, when the satellite is
out-of-range in the UK . The URL is
http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php

A longer version of this report report is available on my
website, and new listeners to OSCAR-11 should read this for
further information. The URL is www.g3cwv.co.uk/oscar11.htm
. This page contains a links to the longer report, a short
audio clip to help you identify the satellite and a file of
the last telemetry received. The website also contains an
archive of news & telemetry data which is updated from time
to time, and details about using a soundcard or hardware
demodulators for data capture. There is also software for
capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry.

If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network,
please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT157.CWV, to
prevent duplication.

73 Clive G3CWV xxxxx at amsat.org (please replace the x's by
g3cwv)