[amsat-bb] question about rain, and telemetry from AO-40

["Mark L. Hammond" <hammond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

By now, I've had pretty good opportunity to print lots of AO-40 telemetry.

What I've observed at my station is troubling me...when the weather is 
clear/dry, I can print AO-40 with a signal where there is no S meter 
reading at all.  When it's raining/wet outside, I can't print the thing 
worth beans at even S7!  We've had three days of rain since the launch, and 
on each rainy day it prints horribly.  There is clearly a pattern.  I can 
get a few good L, K, or M blocks, but hardly any A blocks come through to 
514 bytes.  Rather, they all appear to be short, about 450 or so.

I do believe it's a local problem, not the bird.

Does anybody have an suggestions as to WHY I might observe this?  The high 
S meter/audio level with little or no good A blocks really has me 
stumped.  I don't seem to hear any higher static levels, any new birdies, 
etc.  If it were just a "wet antenna" trouble, I would have expected really 
poor S meter indication.

I'm open to suggestions :-)

Thanks and 73,

Mark L. Hammond  [N8MH]

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