Increased solar illumination allows AO-16 operations to continue

AO-16 Command Station, Mark N8MH commanded AO-16 ON and restored it to voice mode on September 15.

Mark commented, "At the time of my message we are up to 30 hours of continuous uptime, which is a 'good thing.'
Our predictions regarding sustained activities seem to be right on the mark. Recording your observations about AO-16 at http://oscar.dcarr.org/ has been, and will continue to be, very helpful to us."

It is possible that the transmitter will turn OFF; this requires some commanding to get it running again, which means a pass over the Eastern US coast is required for a change in status. The command team is hoping that the bird will remain ON more often than OFF for the next several
weeks.

Illumination projects (and subsequent temperature predictions) suggest that AO-16 might be able to sustain operations until early November. So, if you want some AO-16 contacts, you had better get them before then.

After November 2008, it may be a long, long time before the orbit provides favorable temperatures for the bird to remain operational for more than a few seconds or minutes at a time.

Current operational mode for AO-16

Mode FM Voice Repeater ( Downlink is DSB)
Uplink : 145.9200 MHz FM
Downlink 437.0260 MHz SSB

Mark, N8MH