Ken W7KKE reports that ARISSat-1 is heating up as it starts to enter the Earth’s atmosphere, it can still be heard on 145.950 MHz FM but not for much longer.
On the AMSAT bulletin board he writes:
At 2055Z today [Friday] had a 77 deg pass. Highest temp was the -Z PPT 6 panel temp at 88 C. Yesteday it was temp was 74 C. RF temp was 57 C which is one degree cooler than observed yesterday.
Keps were only 0.7 days old, but still had to manually chase the signal when it was near predicted TCA.
Ken Eaton GW1FKY posted this report on Friday evening:
Pleased to report lots of activity on the last two passes of ARISSat-1 over here in Europe today (Friday)
Some calls at 1507 hrs PD0RKC, heard you and you were 5 X 8 but dropped to 5 X 5 rather quickly. At 1639 hrs heard ON4GP calling and then in contact with DG1ER, you were both 5X7 prior to the satellite switching off in eclipse.
Nice to report the activity as we approach the end on the year and an era for ARISSat-1.
You can get orbital predictions times by selecting ARISSat-1 on the online prediction tool at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/
A graph showing the descent of ARISSat-1 can be seen at http://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/arissat.htm#r
ARISSat-1 . . A Fun HAM Satellite! http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/12/25/arissat-1-a-fun-ham-satellite/
AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, which is full of Amateur Satellite information.
Free sample issue at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf Join online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK
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