Bill Vajk wrote in message news:hgFFb.176916$_M.807142@attbi_s54...

Thank you Al, George and Bill,

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in message
. com...
The Anomalous acceleration is rather large about
1 part in 1700. This rules out any new g-field effect
or known GR effect or SR effect.
[snip kst]

Not a flame really, but I suggest you look at the
sections on "Relativistic equations of motion",
"Light time solution and time scales" and "Solar
corona model and weighting" where they consider
the effect on the range. Note that since the range
is derived from the Doppler shift, and the shift
is measured by counting cycles as the integral of
phase, it is the phase velocity of the signal that
matters and this is greater than c. You can find
the sections on pages 12-15 of:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0104064
The reference to phase velocity is in note [60].
The ranging system was not working on Pioneer 10.
HTH
George

[snip kst]
IMO...
The error appears in the measurement procedure,
specifically in Galilean Relativity, let me explain,
why Gal. Rel. is a useful concept here.

I went through a prolonged discussion of this some time
back in these newsgroups.

If you look at how the folks who came to the conclusion
arrived at it the first thing to note is the fudge factors
they enter into "correcting" the incoming data stream
to acommodate atmospheric conditions. There are other
problems as well, including the possibility of multiple
signal paths.
Clean and unadulterated data would make me a lot happier
about the whole situation. Till then the whole thing
remains suspect IMO. But doubtless it has brought
lots of funding over the years, and who can fault
the group for that?

Ha, well Bill I don't manage this group, and the1 part
in 1700 error is huge by Newtonian standards. It is
approximately 1+3*(V(e) +v) where V(e) is escape
velocity (sun+earth), and v is the relative velocity of
the s/c relative to Earth. This Equation also accounts
for the periodiocy reported in gr-qc/9903024 Fig. 1.
This equation can be *rationalized* by employing
a Galilean Transform.

((I communicated with Dr. Turyshev back in 1999
about this - we had a bit of fun because his footnote
on page 5 spelled louvers as "lovers around the bus")).

Anyway, lacking more intelligence, and cross checked
data, I'm inclined to regard the anomaly at the feet of
Galilean Relativity.

What's needed is the *Pluto Express*, with lot's of
geodesy to explore how things move, and where
they are. That will be be a very good experiment to
close our current gaps in spacetime measurement
when rapidly radially receeding objects are considered.

We have a good deal of data where circular orbits
are concerned, and we aquired a bit of GR in the
examination of Mercury's orbit because it's eccentricity
had some radial component. But by and large we
really are quite ignorant of data covering extreme
eccentricities as the hyperberbolic Pioneers are doing,
and wound up with an enormous discrepency, (1/1700).

Regards and thanks, flames welcome...
Ken S. Tucker