Look at http://packages.ubuntu.com and click on the name of the version you have (7.10 is hardy, not sure what 6.06 is) and then hamradio... you will find MANY packages for APRS, PSK31, RTTY, and more. (Xastir is the most popular for APRS, from what I hear.)

73, George, KA3HSW

----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Christensen" eric@christensenplace.us To: "John Marranca, Jr" KB2HSH@amsat.org Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 10:17 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: APRS and Tracking Software for Linux?

John, There is an Amateur Radio SIG in the Fedora community that is ramping up quite a few programs. Goto http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/AmateurRadio and check it out. The link to the packages will take you to all the software development.

73s, Eric Christensen, W4OTN AMSAT Area Coordinator - Southeastern Virginia USA AMSAT Member 35360 http://www.ericsatcom.net

John Marranca, Jr wrote:

...

Hopefully someone can help me here.

I am experimenting with Ubuntu Linux 6.06 LTS here...and I'm so far impressed with the speed and ease of use. It's certainly no Windows XP, but it's not bad.

So...what are other Linux users using for APRS duty? Soundcard packet/APRS? Tracking?

No hurry...since I'm not swtiching my 333 MHz Celeron. I'm just in the "learning curve".

John KB2HSH

John:

I've written a satellite tracking program in Java, that will work on Linux. The problem I ran into is that Java has terrible support for hardware like serial ports and USB ports, which we have historically used to control radios and rotators.

My program (I call it JSatTrack) was written to control the FT-847, IC-910 and TS-2000, and also several rotator protocols. Because I have the serial drivers for windows, it controls those devices when run on windows. But not on a MAC, and not on Linux, because serial port classes aren't there.

It will work without controlling any radios/rotators, but Java will complain about the serial driver classes not being there, so I would have to remove all the code that relies upon those driver classes.

It reads the KEPS from AMSAT or CELESTRAK, and will track any 'reasonable' number of satellites simultaneously. It maintains a sorted list of upcoming passes for the satellites being tracked, and shows their location on a world map. The currently visible, highest priority satellite is shown with the uplink and downlink frequencies adjusted for Doppler and for any upconverter/downconverter.

I was working on an easy way to sync the TX and RX in order to make QSOs easy and still follow the "one true rule for Doppler tuning". That feature may still need a bit of touchup, but it won't matter if you're not controlling a radio.

What I've been doing is changing the program to talk over the internet (local or long-distance) to a small microcontroller with an Ethernet port (I'm using the Modtronics (www.modtronix.com) SBC65 board). That board has a serial port, multiple common collector ports, and multiple A/D converter ports - all that I need to control a radio and an az-el rotator. That work has been started but there's a lot to do, so it will take some time.

If you want to play with what I have, I will have to make the serial port mods before I can make it available. It also has a licensing scheme that requires a license file (I was planning on either selling it or donating it to AMSAT so they can profit from sales, but I can't do that until it is complete.) But I'll create a license file for you so you can play to your heart's content, and possibly give me feedback on the program. It needs at least the Java 4.1 runtime, but I've been compiling it with 5.0. Not sure if it will complain on 4.1 now or not.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll look into removing reliance on the serial port classes.

73, Art N3OY

-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of John Heaton Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 9:39 AM To: amsat bb Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: APRS and Tracking Software for Linux?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

On 12 Jan 2008, at 03:07, George Henry wrote:

Look at http://packages.ubuntu.com and click on the name of the version you have (7.10 is hardy, not sure what 6.06 is) and then hamradio... you will

6.06 LTS is Dapper Drake 7.04 is Feisty Fawn 7.10 is Gutsy Gibbon 8.04 LTS will be Hardy Heron (due out in April)

LTS is the Long Term Support version.

6.06 LTS and 7.04 are the most stable. 7.10 is a vast improvement but contains several buggettes

For some that I've found: http://www.phers.co.uk/content/view/79/1/

8.04 LTS is available as Alpha 3 now, but DON'T USE IT AS YOUR MAIN SYSTEM...

John

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