I asked this question maybe a year ago at a point after the rehab of the hacked AMSAT web site but now that sufficient time has elapsed I feel as one who wants to promote AMSAT and Amateur Radio Satellite activities, I have to bring up again.
There are still, this far down the path issues with the AMSAT Pass prediction page that need to be addressed. First one should be easy. The pass prediction page was resurrected by reusing old code and linking to it from the new WordPress main page all well and good. Problem is that all the links on the pass prediction page that should link back other parts of the site, including clicking on the banner picture at the top are broken and should be restored.
Another concern is the actual satellite drop down list. The contents of which have not bee updated in a while save for the inclusion of AO-73 at the top. Ray Hoad, WA5QGD does a yeoman's job of keeping up with the orbital elements from various sources each week and sending out a great composit listing. Since I believe this distribution is the source for the data that does the predictions for web users, it should be fairly easy to parse the list of two line elements and regenerate the drop down list on a weekly basis. As a newbie back in 2010 to the world of Amateur Radio satellites, I used the on-line prediction tool quite often and think that it needs to be considered as an important part of our promotion efforts. Thus it needs to be current.
Lest you all think I am just ragging at our AMSAT NA web guys for not being current. I found it interesting to find that on the AMSAT-UK web site, they have a page that is a listing of dopler.SQF values for use in SatPC32. Cool I thought, guidance from the source on FunCube frequencies for use in this wonderful tracking program. Go to http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/doppler-sqf-2/ and see if I am mistaken but I bet you will not find either AO-73 or FunCube-1 listed in the file.
73 to all
Tom Schuessler 2713 Lake Gardens Drive Irving, Texas 75060 972-986-7456 214-403-1464 (Cell) n5hyp@arrl.net
Tom,
Your point is definitely noted and AMSAT-IT volunteers have been trying to figure out a fix. We have a few in mind but in the end it comes down to is there a volunteer willing to do it and do they have the experience necessary with web programming? Brent and I helped last Summer with our web experience to get the Wordpress site up. Most people helping are fairly knowledgeable with Wordpress basics and the site continues to function. Could there be improvements? Yes. I'd love to see more formatting in the content as it is let alone features like predict being updated.
Brent and I moved on to help with the Fox-1 project since the Website was stable. With Tony's passing, it's even more critical we focus on Fox-1. I know I am reiterating what's been said here many times but AMSAT is completely dependent on volunteers and especially volunteers with specific skill-sets such as website design. This is a great example of it. If you are or know of someone who would be enthusiastic about this portion of the website and knows some HTML, PHP, CSS, and Python/C programming then by all means direct them to the Volunteer for AMSAThttp://ww2.amsat.org/?page_id=1096page.
Bryce Salmi KB1LQC
On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Tom Schuessler tjschuessler@verizon.netwrote:
I asked this question maybe a year ago at a point after the rehab of the hacked AMSAT web site but now that sufficient time has elapsed I feel as one who wants to promote AMSAT and Amateur Radio Satellite activities, I have to bring up again.
There are still, this far down the path issues with the AMSAT Pass prediction page that need to be addressed. First one should be easy. The pass prediction page was resurrected by reusing old code and linking to it from the new WordPress main page all well and good. Problem is that all the links on the pass prediction page that should link back other parts of the site, including clicking on the banner picture at the top are broken and should be restored.
Another concern is the actual satellite drop down list. The contents of which have not bee updated in a while save for the inclusion of AO-73 at the top. Ray Hoad, WA5QGD does a yeoman's job of keeping up with the orbital elements from various sources each week and sending out a great composit listing. Since I believe this distribution is the source for the data that does the predictions for web users, it should be fairly easy to parse the list of two line elements and regenerate the drop down list on a weekly basis. As a newbie back in 2010 to the world of Amateur Radio satellites, I used the on-line prediction tool quite often and think that it needs to be considered as an important part of our promotion efforts. Thus it needs to be current.
Lest you all think I am just ragging at our AMSAT NA web guys for not being current. I found it interesting to find that on the AMSAT-UK web site, they have a page that is a listing of dopler.SQF values for use in SatPC32. Cool I thought, guidance from the source on FunCube frequencies for use in this wonderful tracking program. Go to http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/doppler-sqf-2/ and see if I am mistaken but I bet you will not find either AO-73 or FunCube-1 listed in the file.
73 to all
Tom Schuessler 2713 Lake Gardens Drive Irving, Texas 75060 972-986-7456 214-403-1464 (Cell) n5hyp@arrl.net
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participants (2)
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Bryce Salmi -
Tom Schuessler