[Phillip Beall (W5EBC)]

All,

Here is one for those of us who occasionally complain when a piece of radio equipment gives up after five or ten years.

AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) was launched in 1974 — and amateur radio operators are still using it today.

AMSAT highlighted the remarkable little satellite again in its September 20, 2026 News Service bulletin in a piece titled “AO-7 Again Captures Attention.”

AMSAT News Service — September 20, 2026

AO-7 was launched on November 15, 1974 and operated for more than six years before going silent in 1981 after its battery system failed. At that point, everyone quite reasonably assumed the satellite’s useful life was over.

It wasn’t.

More than 20 years later, in June 2002, British amateur radio operator Pat Gowen, G3IOR, heard what turned out to be AO-7’s CW telemetry beacon.

The satellite had come back to life.

The explanation is almost as interesting as the resurrection itself. Years of heating and cooling in space apparently caused the failed battery connection to change from a short circuit to an open circuit. That allowed the solar panels to begin powering the satellite’s electronics directly whenever AO-7 was in sunlight.

Testing then showed that not only was the beacon working, but the amateur-radio transponders were still functional as well.

AMSAT has a very good history of AO-7 and its extraordinary second life here:

AMSAT — AO-7: A Fifty-Year Anniversary

Today AO-7 remains semi-operational. When it is illuminated by the sun, amateur operators can still make contacts through a spacecraft built more than half a century ago.

AMSAT continues to publish current operating information for AO-7 here:

AMSAT — AO-7 Current Operating Information

And apparently the old bird isn’t merely sputtering along.

In the July/August 2026 issue of The AMSAT Journal, Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, analyzed nearly 1,500 recent AO-7 status reports. The data showed that the spacecraft’s basic functions continue to operate remarkably well considering its age.

The AMSAT Journal

There is one important catch. AO-7 has very little power available and operators have to treat it gently. Excessive uplink power can place too much load on the satellite and interfere with its operation. This is definitely a case where “use the minimum power necessary” is more than just good amateur practice.

Think about what has happened technologically since 1974. Personal computers, cell phones, GPS, the Internet and software-defined radios all came along while this little spacecraft continued circling the Earth.

It quit working.

It spent more than two decades presumed dead.

Then it woke back up.

And amateur radio operators are still talking through it.

Not bad for 1974 technology.

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Sources and additional reading:

AMSAT News Service — September 20, 2026
AO-7: A Fifty-Year Anniversary
AO-7 Current Operating Information
The AMSAT Journal

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Phillip Beall (W5EBC)

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