On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 04:37:13PM -0400, Philip Jenkins wrote:
I'm in the process of buying a very low-end refurbished PC for use at Field Day and at a 10 day local fair this Fall to demonstrate satellite operating.
All that this PC will be used for is running packet software and SatPC32 in the field. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the PC to control the antenna. (I may use this PC as for packet/APRS at home; I have another Win XP shack desktop already dedicated to ham radio/SatPC32/rig control/antenna steering.)
Windows 7 won't run on anything that most people would call "low end". You might manage to install it on a fastsh Core2 machine with perhaps as little as 4GB of RAM.
If you want something lightweight and reliable, use Linux. The packet radio stack is about as modern as any amateur radio software ever gets, and you can use gpredict for your satellite passes. Depending on which distribution you pick, you can make it as lightweight as you want.