The operation of one-atom maser with atomic levels degenerate in the projec
tions of angular momentum on the quantization axis is considered with an ac
count of nonzero cavity temperature and finite life-time of photons in it.
The dependence of the maser field characteristics (mean photon number, fiel
d variance, atomic correlation functions) on the angle between the polariza
tion vectors of the cavity field and laser excitation pulse is studied nume
rically.