Re: Pioneer Anomaly discussion continued

Thomas Smid (thomas.smid@xxxxxxxxx) writes:
On 26 Mar, 18:39, af...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (John Park) wrote:
Thomas Smid (thomas.s...@xxxxxxxxx) writes:

[...]

Since there are no data when sin(wt) is negative (the spacecraft is
below the horizon then) we can thus replace sin(wt) by 0.5*|sin(wt)|
for our purposes, so

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the spacecraft observed from more than
one site, meaning that it would only rarely be below the horizon from
everyone?

By definition, the space craft always must be above the horizon when
observed from any station. A switch of station would just mean a
sudden phase shift in the sine function, but this is (hopefully) being
taken into account in the data analysis, so technically we can for
this purpose just as well pretend that only one station is being
used.

Don't understand. If, to take an extreme case, two stations, 180 degrees
apart in longitude, monitored the satellite and combined their data, the
satellite would always be above someone's horizon, and under continuous
observation. So where would your half-wave-rectified-sinusoid problem come
from?

However, additionally we would have to account for the fact that the
signals are emitted and received at different local times, so we would
actually be dealing with an average (|sin(wt)|+|sin(wt+phi)|))/2,
where phi is the angle corresponding to this difference in local time.

And if phi = pi, you have the equivalent of full-wave rectification.

--John Park
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Pioneer Anomaly discussion continued
    ... for our purposes, so ... meaning that it would only rarely be below the horizon from ... observed from any station. ... signals are emitted and received at different local times, ...
    (sci.astro)
  • Re: Pioneer Anomaly discussion continued
    ... for our purposes, so ... meaning that it would only rarely be below the horizon from ... observed from any station. ... by the data analysis. ...
    (sci.astro)