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www.southgatearc.org
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OSCAR-11 Report The Amateur Radio satellite Clive Wallis G3CWV provides the latest update and asks for reception reports of the 145.826 MHz beacon This report covers the period from 11 January to 23 February 2010. During this time the satellite was heard from 21 to 31 January and 11 to 24 February. Good signals were received, and decoded. Signals have been very strong, although frequent changes in polarisation have been observed. The satellite has only transmitted when in sunlight.The next transmissions are expected around 04 March 2010. The on-board clock was 260 days slow, when last heard on 21 February. The increasing error suggests that the clock may be stopping, when the satellite is in eclipse. Sometimes, the date counter also fails to increment. Reception reports have been received from stations located all over the world including Peter Zl3TC, Jon 2M0IBO, Mike DK3WN, Adrian LU1CBG, Robert VE2PRS, Ken GW1FKY and Alan ZL2BX. Many thanks to everyone who sent email reports, posted to AMSAT-BB or updated the KD5QGR / WB4APR satellite status website. The Beacon frequencies are - VHF 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry UHF 435.025 MHz. OFF S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF RECEPTION REPORTS REQUESTED! I am particularly interested in reports of reception during the hours 23:00 to 06:00 and 12:00 to 17:00 UTC, especially near expected switch on or off dates. Please send reception reports to xxxxx@amsat.org (replace xxxxx by g3cwv) or post to amsat-bb. If you have a file, please do not send it but let me know what is available. You may also like to add your reception report to the live satellite status page, on the website set up by David KD5QGR and Bob WB4APR. The URL is http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php The satellite transmits on 145.826 MHz., set receiver to NBFM. OSCAR-11 has a characteristic sound, rather like raspy slow morse code, sending "di di dah dah dah dah dah dah dah" sent over five seconds. If you are receiving a very weak signal, switch the receiver to CW or SSB. You should hear several sidebands around the carrier frequency, and should be able to hear the characteristic 'morse code like' sound on at least one sideband. Please note that you need a clean noise free signal to decode the signals. There is an audio clip on my website http://www.g3cwv.co.uk/ which may be useful for identification and as test signal for decoding. The satellite is now subject to eclipses during every orbit. Long term predictions indicate that eclipses will occur until 2019, when there will be some eclipse free periods until 2023. However these very long term predictions should be regarded with caution, as large tracking errors can accumulate over long periods of time.
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