October 2009 - AMSAT-BB - mailman.amsat.org

UWE-2 news?
by andy thomas 07 Oct '09

07 Oct '09

Any news of UWE-2? I have never heard her and I see a relevant observation on the DK3WN satblog. 73 de andy g0sfj

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A0-27 Website
by Rick - WA4NVM 07 Oct '09

07 Oct '09

Hi All, Does anyone know what has happened to the A0-27 website? It hasn't worked for over three days. So far, I just have to track and listen for the bird to turn on. Thanks for any information, Rick - WA4NVM

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Re: [Hearsat] Opinions on receivers
by Luc Leblanc 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

On 4 Oct 2009 at 10:18, Loren Moline WA7SKT wrote: Date sent: Sun, 04 Oct 2009 10:18:37 -0700 From: Loren Moline WA7SKT <lmoline(a)hotmail.com> Subject: [Hearsat] Opinions on receivers To: hearsat(a)mailman.qth.net > > Hello, > > I am looking for opinions on wideband receivers for the like of Icom , AOR or others. Interested in things like sensitivity, stability, and birdies comparisons. Also whether they have a 10.7MHz output jack. Thanks! > > > Loren WA7SKT > > > Member: ARRL and Pacific Northwest VHF Society > Member: Hearsat Satellite Monitoring Group > Location: CN86cx > > I have a PCR-1000 and i'm very satisfied with it. The only one drawbacks I got a lot of intermod on 137mhz from the paging system making NOAA weather pictures hard to decoded. "-" Luc Leblanc VE2DWE Skype VE2DWE www.qsl.net/ve2dwe DSTAR urcall VE2DWE WAC BASIC CW PHONE SATELLITE

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Satellite Orbit Prediction in Python
by Mark VandeWettering 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

I just thought I'd drop a quick note here about some fun I've been having today with satellite orbit prediction in Python. When I started mucking around with satellites, I used "predict", which was pretty good, but at some point I wanted to answer some questions which weren't easy to answer using predict. Questions like "when will AO-51 be visible from both my home in CM87 and locations in Hawaii", or "what was the radius of the circle of visibility for AO-7 compared to ISS"? Luckily, I'm a programmer. In fact, I'm a programmer who programs for fun. So, I did a bit of research, and then coded up a version of G3RUH's "Plan 13" algorithm in Python, and then wrote some scripts to download elements from celestrak, and then a simple one to print data on the next pass of any named satellite. And, they worked pretty good. I've used them for the last year or so to do all my pass predictions. But there are still a couple of minor issues with the library. It didn't handle geosynchronous satellites very well. It implemented only the most basic of orbital models. I was never confident that the "is this satellite in eclipse" stuff working exactly right. Luckily though, it turns out that someone else has been busy writing a more complete library: PyEphem http://rhodesmill.org/pyephem/ It's a library whose primary purpose is to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. I've used it a couple of times to (for instance) figure out the size of Mars compared to Jupiter, and found it very easy to use. But today, I realized that it had a full implementation of the SGP4 and SDP4 orbital models built in, and could be used to predict satellite passes. As a proof of concept, I hacked together a 23 line script that could print the details of upcoming ISS passes. It seems to work great, and is really quite easy to use. You can find some of the simple example code at my blog: http://brainwagon.org/2009/09/27/how-to-use-python-to-predict-satellite-loc… I'll probably be porting all of my existing scripts to use this soon. In the mean time, if you have a similar task, you might look to it to solve your custom satellite prediction problems. 73 Mark K6HX

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Portable ARISS groundstation ON7RT
by Trevor . 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

I liked this YouTube video regarding Wednesdays (Oct 7) ARISS contact with Sint-Michielscollege Brasschaat, Belgium, see http://www.southgatearc..org/news/october2009/portable_ariss_groundstation_… 73 Trevor M5AKA

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Road Trip to DM90 C.I.P.
by w6zkh＠comcast.net 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

The planned trip to Grid DM90 is off for the time being. Got to investigating the map, and it will be a +100 mile one-way trip, which is abit out of the way at the moment. Depending on how we go home West from DM91, will depend if I hit it. Sorry for getting hopes up. Will be on EM00 at the 2351 utc pass. John W6ZKH

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RG316/U
by Amateur Radio Station W4MPS 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

I will be traveling to Ireland next week and will be taking my FT60R handheld and an Elk antenna. I purchased a short length of RG316 with appropriate connectors installed to avoid the need for several adapters and bulkier RG58. I was shocked at how small the diameter is for the 316. Manufacturer assures me it will work quite well at 145/435 for the use intended. Has anyone had experience with this cable? Tnx 73 Marc, W4MPS W4MPS(a)nc.rr.com

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SatStatus
by Andrew Rich 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

Well sat_status has been migrated from a tiny ASUS 1008HA to my LINUX server. Seems to be quite usuable and seems to stay up ok http://vk4tec.no-ip.org/sat_status/ Are there any other projects people have ? I would like to tackle + Web driven rotator control + Predict driven rotator controller + Some more satellite web tracking solutions Andrew

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GJTRACKER Version 2.0.4
by Lance Collister 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

Howdy! I am grateful for such prompt feedback on Version 2.0.3! It seems everyone uses the program a little differently ;-) There were some errors in how the program handled real time mode calculations when a user's computer clock was not set to UTC. The program now works correctly with any local time offset from UTC (including fractional hours, where applicable). As always, the correct current version is available in the complete distribution package with associated files at http://bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/GJTRACKER.zip If you are already a user of GJTRACKER and only need the updated application file, it also is available at http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/GJTRACKER.exe Good luck and DX to all! See you off the moon! VY 73, Lance -- Lance Collister, W7GJ (ex: WN3GPL, WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8, E51SIX) P.O. Box 73 Frenchtown, MT 59834 USA QTH: DN27UB TEL: (406) 626-5728 URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj 2m DXCC #11, 6m DXCC #815

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SatPC32 Not Tuning
by Tim Goodrich 06 Oct '09

06 Oct '09

You might also try playing with one of the other settings. It's been a while since I've used SatPC32, so don't quote me on the name of the setting, but it may be the CAT delay. On my 817 I had to change the setting from the default of 120ms to 250ms. Tim KI6VBY

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