Author: SM0TGU

Information frn AMSAT-UK och AMSAT-DL:

Schedule updated. The power budget allows an extention of passband time by 10 MA s on each end.

Stacey reports: The AO-40 schedule has been modified to activate the 24 GHz K-band transmitter. From MA 126 to 128 both the S2 and K middle beacons only will be active. From MA 128 to 132 both the S2 & K transmitters will be active on the U/L uplink passbands. The last time the K-Tx was active, it was noted to have suffered a partial power loss suggesting that one of the output transistors may have failed. We will monitor its function to see if this condition has changed. Please report your successes/failures to the amsat-bb. We are holding ALON/ALAT at nominal 0/0, but ALAT has been drifting slightly positive (~1 deg), which will slightly favor northern hemisphere users.

Klla: AMSAT-DL, AMSAT-UK

Hr kommer nyhetssammanfattning frn ANS:

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-005.03
AO-40 OPERATING SCHEDULE UPDATE

Stacey Mill, W4SM, provided the following update on AO-40 s operating schedule. The power budget allows us to extend the passband time by 10 MA s on each end and we have activated the 24 GHz K-band transmitter.
From MA 126 to 128 both the S2 and K middle beacons only will be active. From MA 128 to 132 both the S2 & K transmitters will be active on the U/L uplink passbands. Stacey said. He continues, The last time the K-Tx was active, it was noted to have suffered a partial power loss suggesting that one of the output transistors may have failed. We will monitor its function to see if this condition has changed. Stacey also requested that K-band successes and failures be reported to the AMSAT-BB.

Stacey also noted that, We are holding ALON/ALAT at nominal 0/0, but ALAT has been drifting slightly positive (~1 deg), which will slightly favor northern hemisphere users.

[ANS thanks Stacey, W4SM, for the above information]

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-005.04
AO-40 RUDAK OPERATIONS

During the week of Christmas the RUDAK team has concentrated on getting software loaded after the long period of quite time when there was inadequate power to run RUDAK and the experiments.

A task to record all activity on the CAN bus was loaded and run on the B processor while the CAN server and CEDEX task were run on the A. The CAN logging task files and the CEDEX task files were downloaded and are being analyzed to diagnose the problem that has prevented collection and logging of CEDEX data since December, 2001.

During the Christmas eve and day windows it was determined both RUDAK processors had crashed back to the boot loader and reloading was begun. An initial attempt to reload A failed and the short window prevented further diagnosis.

Some testing on the new windows based command software was accomplished and a few changes have been made. This is an important activity because it forms the basis for telemetry and command software for future AMSAT-NA satellites including ECHO and Eagle. Again, however, the short RUDAK window prevented complete testing.

Further load and diagnosis activities will be undertaken during the next available window.

[ANS thanks Jim, WD0E, for the above information]

Klla: ANS-005

Klla: ANS

Rudak har nu testats igen, rapport frn 14:e december:

The RUDAK window was used tonight to load the kernel and initial housekeeping task into both processors to reduce power consumption. The short window allowed only the main housekeeping task to be loaded and started in the B rocessor. The A load remains to be completed during the
next visible window. After that all task software will be loaded into A in order to begin testing of new command software. In the process we will test the experiment hardware including the DSPs to assure it all still works.

Klla: ANS