[evlatests] Results from Solar Tests of 11 Oct.

[Ken Sowinski]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2011, Rick Perley wrote:

>    Perhaps more interesting are some notable exceptions to these results:
>    a) Antenna 10 showed *no change* in amplitude between the 'in' and
> 'out' states, at all three bands.  However, the situation is not one of
> failed commands, or a failed attenuator, since the *phase changed* for
> every change of state.  So ... something is changing, but that change
> doesn't affect the signal strength.   This behavior was the same for
> both polarizations.

I cannot explain the phase change, but can explain the
lack of attenuation.  The M301 MIB in ea10 is using old
software and does not respond to the solar attenuator
command.  This should be updated today if possible.

>    b) There were four antennas which shared the behavior of antenna 10,
> but only for one of the transitions:  At L-band, antennas 14 and 17 each
> failed to change from the 'in' to the 'out' state once (at a different
> time for each).   At C-band, antenna 12 failed (once) to change from
> 'out' to 'in' state, and antenna 7 failed (once) to change from 'in' to
> 'out'.  For all of these, the phases did change, and the behavior is the
> same for both polarizations.  In other words, this failure mode is the
> same as for antenna 10, but occurred much less frequently.

This must be a different problem.  Perhaps switch failures?