Recently a rotational band has been observed to feed the 13/2+ isomer in both 197At and 199At [1]. The evolution of the isomeric state itself when approaching the neutron mid-shell, from becoming yrast in 199At and α-particle decaying in 193At [2], has earlier been studied. Moreover, a spherical 29/2+ isomer has been identified to feed the i13/2 band in 199At. This high-spin isomer has been observed sporadically throughout the neutron- deficient odd-mass astatine isotopes.
Preliminary results from a recent recoil-decay tagging [7] study reveal decays from iso- meric states detected in 203Fr and 205Fr for the first time. These could present a single-step decay of the intruding 13/2+ isomer to the ground state.
The experiments were performed at JYFL using the gas-filled recoil separator RITU [3] together with the Ge-detector array JUROGAM [4,5] and the focal plane spectrometer GREAT [6].

[1] U. Jakobsson et al., to be published
[2] H. Kettunen et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 17, 537 (2003)
[3] M. Leino et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 99, 635 (1995) [4] C. W. Beausang et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 313, 37 (1992)
[5] C. Rossi Alvarez et al., Nuclear Physics News 3, 3 (1993)
[6] R. D. Page et al., Nuc. Instrum. Methods B 204, 634 (2003)
[7] E. S. Paul et al., Phys. Rev. C 51, 78 (1995)