On 2/19/2011 8:09 PM, Bob- W7LRD wrote:
How does one determine the age of the keps in a computer?
I guess that depends on what you are trying to look with. I use Nova for windows and it will tell how old the keps are for the selected satellite by selecting AutoTracking > Summary. That resulted in:
Satellite name : OSCAR 10 Catalog number : 14129 Keps age : 1174d,03hr Next AOS : Location : Glendora, CA Latitude : 34° 07' 00" N Longitude : 117° 51' 00" W Algorigthm : G3RUH AutoTracking : Disabled
The 3rd line shows the age of the keps. Yes, those really are 3 1/2 years old...
If you look at a TLE file, the epoch time is the 3rd element in a 2 digit year followed by the 3 digits before the decimal and a bunch after the decimal point. So in the TLE below, the epoch time was 32.75507474 days into 2006. AO-07 1 07530U 74089B 06032.75507474 -.00000028 00000-0 10000-3 0 05556 2 07530 101.5919 078.9684 0012116 149.1255 211.0532 12.53571784428419
Here is a web site that explains it. http://www.satobs.org/element.html