[GCARC] End of Tevel satellites nearing

[Jon Pearce]

Yeah - unfortunately there haven't been many long-term successful amateur satellites launched recently. The ISS continues to be the most reliable FM station as well as being an APRS repeater. RS-44 is still fun to work on SSB and hopefully is high enough not to deorbit soon. Greencube is still interesting with its broad coverage (an entire hemisphere of the earth at a time) and long period (frequently more than an hour) but requires some specialized software that fortunately we have on our satellite station.

And the venerable AO-7 bird that was built by Jan King W3GEY and Tom Clark then-W3IWI (SK) in Jan's basement using shower curtains to create a "clean room" is still operating. Launched in 1974 it is the longest-operating earth-orbiting satellite - including ALL types of satellites, not just amateur radio, showing that the early ham satellite designers knew their stuff. (Of course the Voyager satellites are still functional but are not earth-orbiting.)

Current satellite status can be obtained on the AMSAT website at https://www.amsat.org/status/

-----Original Message-----
From: gcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net <gcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Courtney Smith
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2024 11:06 PM
To: GCARC at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [GCARC] End of Tevel satellites nearing

Looks like the list of FM satellites is getting shorter.

David 4X1DG posted on Twitter that the current transponder activation of Tevel-7 will likely be the last.

https://x.com/DavidGr06270644/status/1814397552651055373

Also Tevel-5 and Tevel-6 likely had a re-entry event.  https://x.com/DavidGr06270644/status/1814383415400996996

73,
Court KD2SPJ
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