Re: [amsat-bb] Re: Linux tracking software for Linux

[John Mock <kd6pag@xxxxxxx>]

    What can people recommend that incorporates a nice X interface for maps and
    is well documented?

SatTrack seems to work well for me.

    >Most of the ones mentioned only work in Linux and not
    >on other Unix-based operating systems which is a shame...

    Any examples? All the programs I've played with
    run just fine on any OS with a runtime environment
    that vaguely resembles Unix (which is most of them).

Agreed.  I even had an earlier version of SatTrack running under MacOS,
but alas, their copyright/license agreement precluded redistribution, so
it never saw the light of day.  (*chuckle*  ...unless i took my laptop 
outside.)

    There is nothing Linux-specific in sattrack, and it
    has been built on all sorts of systems - read the
    release notes, and the comments in the makefile.
    With the exception of the soundcard hooks, the
    same goes for predict.

It does assume a UNIX-style library API, but almost everyone supports that
to some degree (even some Mac compilers).  It can also operate in batch-mode
and i've used that alot.  However, i used PREDICT as a basis for a homebrew
FT-736 program as it was easier to make a library out of it and its license
agreement encourages innovation/reuse.

    Sattrack 3.1.6 works fine but not great for AO-10/40

It's worked OK for me on AO-10, but my antenna is fairly wide.  On the
other hand, if there were really an issue there, it would have been fixed
long ago. For AO-40, there's a patch out there which improves its accuracy
but if i think part of what one has to do is to set ALON/ALAT differently
by 180 degrees than other sat's(?).  I don't know how important the patch
is, as i ran simulations before and after applying the patch (not having
an AO-40 setup yet), and the results didn't seem very different.

That is an issue for PocketSat, but i presume we're not talking about
PalmOS.  There's a JAVA environment for PalmOS now, so that might be a
good porting opportunity if someone wants to operate AO-40 portable.

        		         -- KD6PAG
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