[amsat-bb] PCsat is full up!

[Bob Bruninga <bruninga@xxxxxxxx>]

> We are at worstcase 35% eclipses and PCsat is fully operational!
>
> This has been accomplished by a concerted effort by a few of our
> international partner ground stations (G6LVB, W4EPI, VK2XGJ, ZL1AOX,
> ZR1CBC, N6CO, ZR1FN and others) making sure that the 72 hour
> fail-safe timer is toggled at least once a weekend.  DUring the week, I
> have no problem doing it at least once a day, but when I am on travel or
> miss Friday's last pass and have Monday students in the morning, its
> been a problem.
>
> She did have a reset on side A this morning, but side-B held, and so she
> came into the sun in low-power mode and it was easy to restore side A.
>
> I doubt our luck will hold to mid Feb (full sun), but its interesting to
> see if we can make it...  The early January phase of better sun only gets
> down to 31% eclipse which is not much of an improvement especially given
> that it is near the solstice and our bad solar panel is facing up at the
> sun in the southern hemisphere then...

To make it easy to recognize when PCsat has done a reset due to low
batteries in the dark, we are loading it with the callsign of PCSAT-1.
She should still respond to the W3ADO-1 digi callsign.  If she resets,
then the callsign changes to W3ADO-1 in every packet and we know to
restore her on the next pass.

I would welcome all users to enjoy PCsat.  But it would be best if no one
used PCsat after dark and before Sunrise to give her a better chance to
make it to sun a few minutes later...

de WB4APR@amsat.org, Bob

PCsat WEB  page     http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pcsat.html
ISS-APRS FAQ:       http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/iss-faq.html







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