[jamsat-news:1931] ANS-181.02 AMSAT Special Bulletin - ECHO Contact Est

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-181.02
ECHO Contact Established

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 181.01 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD. June 29, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-181.01

First contact with Echo was at 1452 UTC on 29 June 2004.  After collecting a
bit of TLM the 435.150 MHz transmitter was turned off at 1500 UTC.  The
preliminary keps were observed to be pretty close. The first look at ECHO's
telemetry shows things are looking good.  The battery was fully charged and
the panels were delivering about 950 ma, which is fine.  The panels
were supporting the transmitter power adequately at about 2.3W output.  The
bird appears to be tumbling as expected.  Internal temperatures are around
10C which is also as expected.

On the second pass the loading of software began and good progress was made.
Telemetry continues to look very good.  While fades clearly indicated we
continue to tumble (as expected), at 2.2 Watts output we were able to make
good bits without difficulty.  Rather than turn the TX off at the end of
that pass, based on a very good looking power system, the power was turned
down to about 0.3 Watts.

The hour between passes was spent closely examining the captured telemetry
and comparing it to pre-launch testing, as well as tweaking the keps a bit.
At the start of the next pass the power will be turned back up and loading
the housekeeping software, a task which will continue on the evening passes
tonight, will resume.  The TX has been left on at about 0.3W.

If you record telemetry please send the CSV files to ke4azn@amsat.org.

Please do not transmit to Echo until checkout and commissioning has been
completed and the satellite is made available for general use.  Unexpected
uplinks may cause delays in verifying the proper operation of ECHO and delay
the opening of the transponders to general use.

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

/EX

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