Been "off the air" with sats once the demise of AO40 but with all the new birds up, thought I'd give it another go. Since hardware and software have changed a great deal, thought I'd get some opinions. I have a Yaesu FT736r and and Yaesu FT847. G5400b rotor and a 22 element 2M cross beam and a larger 440 (not sure how may elements) beam. All setup on 2.4ghz receive with a converted direct broadcast box i modified and recently finished an LVB tracker. So the big question remains.... what software? Kind of narrowed it to either SCRAP or Nova, but any suggestions good bad or otherwise? I used to use WinOrbit before but would like to use az/el AND radio tuning with the 847... Many thanks. -James KI0KN
James,
Good programs, but you owe it to yourself to take a look at SATPC32. http://www.dk1tb.de/indexeng.htm It is similar in some ways to Nova, but has some additional support for frequency control of both of your radios, and of course supports the LVB Tracker perfectly. Once you get things tweaked up, it makes working the birds almost like HF, in that it takes care of both tracking and the Doppler correction for you. You can download a fully functional test version, except that you need to enter you QTH longitude and latitude each time you start it up.
Full disclosure requires me to add that the registration fee goes to a worthy cause: AMSAT. It all goes for support and development.
Alan WA4SCA
Here's another vote for SatPC32. This program was great when I first purchased it and it has been updated several times since then with each update improving it even more so. Erich is great with customer support, usually a quick query here or a direct E-mail to him is answered within 24 hours at the most. Plus, as Alan says, proceeds go to AMSAT and that's a good thing. 73, Michael, W4HIJ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan P. Biddle" APBIDDLE@UNITED.NET To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:08 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: tracking programs
James,
Good programs, but you owe it to yourself to take a look at SATPC32. http://www.dk1tb.de/indexeng.htm It is similar in some ways to Nova, but has some additional support for frequency control of both of your radios, and of course supports the LVB Tracker perfectly. Once you get things tweaked up, it makes working the birds almost like HF, in that it takes care of both tracking and the Doppler correction for you. You can download a fully functional test version, except that you need to enter you QTH longitude and latitude each time you start it up.
Full disclosure requires me to add that the registration fee goes to a worthy cause: AMSAT. It all goes for support and development.
Alan WA4SCA
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Orbitron seemed to do the trick for me. It's free, and I know it can be interfaced with radios.
On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 2:47 PM, James Cizek jcizek@yuma.acns.colostate.edu wrote:
Been "off the air" with sats once the demise of AO40 but with all the new birds up, thought I'd give it another go. Since hardware and software have changed a great deal, thought I'd get some opinions. I have a Yaesu FT736r and and Yaesu FT847. G5400b rotor and a 22 element 2M cross beam and a larger 440 (not sure how may elements) beam. All setup on 2.4ghz receive with a converted direct broadcast box i modified and recently finished an LVB tracker. So the big question remains.... what software? Kind of narrowed it to either SCRAP or Nova, but any suggestions good bad or otherwise? I used to use WinOrbit before but would like to use az/el AND radio tuning with the 847... Many thanks. -James KI0KN _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
participants (4)
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Alan P. Biddle -
Andrew Koenig -
James Cizek -
Michael Tondee