Although I’ve worked AO-7 during several Field Days (using our club call W1LY), I hadn’t made an AO-7 QSO since last summer. Today I worked W4VAS, notably on SSB (my first voice QSO on that bird).
It is simply amazing that a satellite launched in November of 1974 is still working 15,162 days later (41.5 years). A fortunate happenstance allowed the dead batteries, which had shorted out back in 1981, to go open circuit in 2002, allowing the ancient satellite to spring back to life whenever it is in sunlight.
It’s funny that you mention me (W4VAS) as I was one of the first to hear this bird when it came back online. I was on my way to work and had my IC-706MKIIG tuned to the sattelite band looking for activity when I heard the telemetry. I tried writing it down as it was different than anything I had heard but I wasn’t familiar with AO7. A few days later, another ham who was familiar with AO7 heard it and announced it tot he world. 🙂
I have since made a lot of contacts on AO7 to AK, and into EU from Georgia, USA.
Lots of fun QSOs since too – I was unable to hear it this past Summer Field Day, which was the first time in years that I didn’t make a contact on AO-7. I feared it was dead, but I see folks are still making contacts. Most of my satellite work happens in winter when the trees drop their leaves (I am surrounded on all sides by massive 150 foot oak trees.