Longest Operating Satellite Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Technically they are orbiting spacecrafts. They are in a heliocentric orbit with very high eccentricity.

 

Interesting rebuttal story. Glad for the somewhat positive & public nod toward amateur radio. But suspicious of the conclusion.

According to records, apparently AO-8 failed June 24 1983, one year from the start of Fighting Solidarity and never came back. While the Polish story reflects on a LOT of amateur radio comms happening well after that for years, lending credence to the AO-7 version.

It would have been certainly desirable to keep any comms between Fighting Solidarity as secure as possible. Hence there was probably an effort to keep the availability & use of AO-7 secret.

Perhaps some of the more active sat hams of the day, unfortunately now SK's as lamented in the Polish version, knew about AO-7 but were enlisted to keep a lid on it, perhaps even going to far as repeating "It's dead Jim!" as misinformation to the potential ham user public audience.

Perhaps the Poles who discovered it were careful to control AO-7 operation & access, commanded it to be "off" on accessible sun lit passes to maintain stealth until needed.

In 2002 when AO-7 was "rediscovered" in the UK there was at first confusion - was it AO-6, or 7, or 8? All were considered as fully non-operational.

Also, the Register articles timing is either incredibly ironic or its motivation quite suspicious coming on the heels of the Polish story being freshly posted here on QRZ. That story has been out for nearly a decade. Why wait to disparage it now?

Taken altogether, IMHO the assertion made by the author Rupert @G6HVY, sounds more like wounded pride sour grapes nationalism from a relative late-comer in the UK.

 

You, Sir, are correct! Okay, oldest operating spacecraft.

 

I am not convinced. I believe these two spacecraft will not be drawn back towards our sun, at least not BY our sun. They are headed away from us, and will not slow down and change direction and come back. Essentially, I believe that their speed has exceeded the sun's escape velocity. Maybe you could say they are orbiting the Milky Way's core?

And this is from an astro-amateur that knows little about the nuances of orbital mechanics.

 

Deja vu as vk3zaz in 1974-75 engineering student in Ballarat I had extended crossed Zep at 28 mhz on ant test range at the college. I made first antarctic qsos on it to vk0gm and piggy backed thru 7 into 6 across pacific to nauru. decades later worked vk3axh in ballarat and opened up the page of my 1974 logbook and entered the qso from 2022 on the next line in the old vk3zaz logbook. happy birthday oscar 7 from another old timer from back then when I was 28 yo now 78 yo..I just put up photo on my qrz page pretty grainy photo 50 yo when on 432 used varactor tripler transmitted on cw, home brew tx home brew crossed yagis on 70/144. vk3zaz Steve..

 

Oscar 7 started my amateur satellite journey. It was an awesome . I became so interested in amateur radio satellites, that I sought and received a job working for AMSAT as their Executive Director and General Manager in 1983. AO-10 was about to be launched! Following a successful launch, AO-10 was immediately struck after deployment by a stage of the ESA rocket that carried it into orbit. AO-10 was crippled by the collision, never reaching its fully intended potential for use by the amateur radio community. But it proved the concept of a high elliptical orbit. The use of manned gateway stations permitting HT operating US hams to work DX stations in the Southern Hemisphere continuously for 90 minutes or more in a single orbit. This was very exciting.

 

Where might I begin, if I want to listen to a passing satellite? I just want to recognize it going by for now. ISS or this one, or any other "easy one" would do. Can figure out 2 way at some later point in time.

Thank you for any pointers.

 

The Navy has (had?) some satellites that have been taken over by Brazilian pirates.
The Great Brazilian Sat-Hack Crackdown | WIRED
Listening to Brazilian Fleetsatcom Pirates with an RTL-SDR

 

I have made contacts thru AO-7 since day 1 and am thrilled to still be able to use it...made by a worldwide group of serious weak signal ham's.as I recall.