FO-29

FO-29 free of eclipse

FO-29 should come out of the eclipse soon, Feb. 2010.
JARL still are making an effort hard the examination use.

JARL says: The eclipse rate of FO-29 suddenly changes from January to
February 2010, but it seems that the possibility of consecutive operation
is low, because the malfunction occurs in the battery control circuit.

But we make a temporary operative plan and operate it, because there is
the possibility of the spontaneous cure to be before approximately 2 years.
When the surplus occurred for the electricity income and expenditure,
we review an operative plan and do it.

In other words, FO-29 may not remain operational after eclipses due to
power budget issues but operations are planned according to the following
schedule when the satellite will be turned ON.

It is operated until time to be OFF by UVC after a transmitter turned ON
on the following date and time.

 Jan.  UTC
  16   21:00-
  22   22:33-
  24   10:35-
  29   21:25-
  31   09:30-

 Feb.  UTC
   5   22:00-
   7   10:00-
  11   11:40-
  12   20:53-
  14   10:40-

It does not limit the use of the analog system transponder, but
please do uplink with the reasonable power. We may cancel the use
of the next day depending on the status of the examination use.

Please use as low power as necessary on the uplink to complete
your communications.


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Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: FO-29 schedule Jan, Feb.
From: Andrew
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:08:25 -0500

As I understand it from Mineo's postings, when the battery voltage on
FO-29 hits a certain set point the satellite turns off. By design it
should turn back on when the voltage recovers, but that part is
malfunctioning. This makes it impossible to accurately determine how
long the transponder will stay on, because it is dependent on use as
well as other parameters.

For those that remember FO-20's last months of operation, the
transponder would often be on until someone used too much power on the
uplink, or there were too many users and it would then shut off. Later
as the voltage recovered it would turn back on. At the end it was only
operational while illuminated. I think FO-29 is behaving the same way,
except it requires command intervention to turn back on.

Is this essentially correct Mineo?

73, Drew KO4MA
----------------------------------------------------------------------


The TX will be ON till the Voltage Controller (UVC) decided to switch OFF.
Now FO-29 is still in eclipses.

For example, if the TX will be switched on at 2100 UTC on Jan 16, then
it will be switched off by UVC at about 21:24 UTC due entering the eclipse.
I understand it from the chart below.

Black boxes are the eclipses. Yellow means sunlight (percent of illumination).
You can see that FO-29 is not free of eclipses but they are getting more
and more shorter.

FO-29 will be switched on after a eclipse and UVC will switch off if the
satellite enters the eclipse (a black box). And you can see the last eclipse
will be on Feb 08 at 00:15 UTC -> after then we have no eclipses anymore.

You can also use a satellite software like Orbitron to simulate the orbit
and the satellite illumination.

Tnx. DK3WN, Mike

JE9PEL, Mineo Wakita






Subject: [amsat-bb] Re^2: FO-29 schedule Jan, Feb.
From: PE0SAT
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:21:57 +0100

On Sat, January 16, 2010 12:41, Mineo Wakita wrote:

Hello Mineo Wakita

Thanks for all the information regarding FO-29

> If the TX will be switched on at 2100 UTC on Jan 16,
> then it will be switched off by UVC at about 21:24 UTC due entering
> the eclipse.

It didn't switch off :) in JO21ho the pass began on 22:26CEST (21:26UTC)
and the old lady was loud and clear during the entire pass.

Here is a recording from that pass:

http://www.ham.vgnet.nl/downloads/FO-29-16012010-2226CEST.mp3

The first 2 minutes there is Beacon CW information and after that a QSO
I had with ON5NY.

73 Jan - PE0SAT


FO-29 transponder ON

JARL says: We turned on an analog transponder in 11:33 UTC on January 27.
We want to confirm the battery budget by the decrease of the eclipse rate.

17:20UTC, 28Jan2010 received by DK3WN
battery voltage dropped down from 13.7 to 10.9 volts during the pass

HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 81 7F 82 8E 8C 96 99 97 92 97
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 81 7E 82 7D 45 97 99 97 93 97
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 80 7C 81 8C 44 97 99 97 93 97
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 80 7B 80 8B 7A 97 9A 98 93 97
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 7F 79 7F 8A 7B 97 9A 98 93 97
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 80 76 7E 89 86 97 9A 98 94 96
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 81 70 7A 85 83 97 9A 98 94 96
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 80 66 76 81 7A 98 9A 98 95 96
HI HI 20 02 88 D5 00 84 00 00 09 60 01 01 01 80 65 76 81 81 98 9A 98 95 96