There's a lot to love with amateur radio but the explanation of how it became operable again is one of my favorites.

AMSAT reported AO-7 still operational on June 25, 2015, with reliable power only from its solar panels; the report stated the cause of the 21-year outage was a short circuit in the battery and the restoration of service was due to its becoming an open circuit. The satellite eclipses on every orbit during the northern summer and autumn; the rest of the year it is in continuous sunlight and alternates between transmission modes A and B. All transponders and beacons are operational.

Thanks, friend. In just a few words you said it better than I would cloud. 😎

When I was little, I often saw my father working on his Yaesu FT101 HF transceiver from the 1970s.
At the time, I watched old (by then) cinema films like Silent Running and discovered the book "OSCAR" by Strata Karamanolis,
also both from the 1970s, on the shelves of my father. Going back the memory lane, I come to the conclusion,
that humanity had reached a magic peak in the 70s, of what ever kind it was. So many things from that era turned out to last and surprise us still.
Just think of the Pieoneers and Voyagers, with the latter ones still going strong after so many, many eras had passed since.

PS: Added a few historic pictures of AO7. Hope that's okay.
Barely retrieved them from several almost defunct personal sites..
Was a lot of work, but totally worth it if it helps to keep memories alive
of the atmosphere and of the people who helped to make AO7.