RE: [amsat-bb] AO-40 omni's

["Reicher, James" <JReicher@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think that says it all!

73 de N8AU, Jim in Raymore, MO


-----Original Message-----
From: Stacey E. Mills [mailto:w4sm@cstone.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 2:37 PM
To: amsat-bb@AMSAT.Org
Subject: [amsat-bb] AO-40 omni's


Vince Fiscus said:

>I wish the command team would try and get the omni's working so we 
>could use the bird more.

Vince,

Only L, U, and V bands ever had omni's.  After the December incident they 
were tried MANY times on all three bands, Rx for L and Rx/Tx for U/V.  None 
of the omnis ever worked after the December incident.  There is every 
reason to believe that they were severely mechanically damaged and will 
remain non-functional.  Omni's were never available for S-band, so even if 
we had an omni Rx this would not help the directional S-band 
downlink.  There is not much need for an omni receive if the downlink is 
highly directional.  In addition, repeatedly switching a functional 
receiver to a non-functional antenna is not something to be taken 
lightly.  If the antenna relay were to fail connected to the omni, we would 
lose that receiver capability forever.  There is nothing else to be done 
with the omni's.

Along the same lines, when the S1 Tx failed I wrote and uploaded a program 
which, over about half an hour, repeatedly cycled the S1 Tx on and off 
every couple seconds.  Each time it was "on" the program checked to see if 
the S1 was drawing any current.  If it had been, the program would have 
terminated at that point, leaving the S1 "on".  Over almost a thousand such 
cycles, the S1 Tx never showed signs of drawing power.



-- 
  ________________________________________________________________________
  Stacey E. Mills, W4SM    WWW:    http://www.cstone.net/~w4sm/ham1.html
    Charlottesville, VA     PGP key: http://www.cstone.net/~w4sm/key
  ________________________________________________________________________

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