Dear friend or member of AMSAT,
The Radio Amateur Society of Thailand under the patronage of His Majesty the King (RAST) has received support and funding for the JAISAT-1 project from Thailand's regulator, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission from its Fund for the Research and Development of Broadcasting, Television and Telecommunications for Public Benefit - BTFP.
Construction of the Linear Transponder has been completed and this module is now in the process of construction and assembly by Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS) in the Netherlands. The society has also received permission from the NBTC to set up a Ground Station (GS) with the callsign HS0AJ together with funding to purchase an Icom IC-9100 transceiver, a G5500 rotor together with computer equipment to be used at the GS HS0AJ and this has now been set up and completed.
However, we have encountered problems in finding an appropriate program for automatic tracking of the satellite. We have installed the Ham Radio Deluxe program on the Windows 10 operating system on the computer but we have encountered many problems such as the IC-9100 driver being unable to communicate with the computer while the Ham Radio Deluxe program has been unable to control or send commands to the Fox Delta Antenna Rotor Control.
The primary purpose of the HS0AJ ground station is to track all amateur radio satellites that pass over Thailand in all modes by setting up a tracking schedule plan for automatic tracking on a daily or weekly basis. Our goal is to forward the audio of satellite signals from the Icom IC-9100 as they pass over Thailand to the RAST website to enable Thai amateur radio operators to monitor these signals online in RAST website and Echolink program.
RAST would like to seek advice from our AMSAT friends worldwide regarding any recommendations of a automated satellite tracking program suitable for the objectives of our ground station.
Thanking you in advance and with respect,
Tanan Rangseeprom, JAISAT Project Manager