ARRL

Register Account

Login Help

Forum Home - Rules - Help - Login - Forgot Password
Members can access, post and reply to the forums below. Before you do, please first read the RULES.

Satellite Orbits

Mar 25th 2013, 15:21

2000726408H80

Joined: Dec 12th 2011, 14:43
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 0
A group I'm with will be participating in the June Field Day this year. One thing we've discussed would be doing a demonstration on Satellite Communications.

Most of the software I've seen gives estimates of orbits only a few days in advance, which isn't much time to plan. Does anyone know of a method of obtaining at least an estimate of a specific satellite orbit in advance - more than a few days - perhaps a month or more.

I realize that the details may be estimates only, but that would be better than nothing. If I had at least an idea that a specific satellite would be in the "neighborhood" around a specific time, we could plan and then tune our efforts as we get closer.
Mar 26th 2013, 12:54

W1VT

Super Moderator

Joined: Apr 4th 1998, 00:00
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 0

http://www.nlsa.com/docs/nfwdoc.pdf
Nova has something they call "script tracking" in which you can set a start date, duration, and other parameters, such as minimum elevation, and then get a listing of orbits that meet those parameters.

http://www.rcallen.com/graftrak.htm
This is an old program that may not run on new machines, but you can set an arbitrary date and get several days of predictions.

Zack Lau W1VT
ARRL Senior Lab Engineer

Mar 26th 2013, 13:53

2000726408H80

Joined: Dec 12th 2011, 14:43
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 0
Thanks for the information! I'll take a look at both.
Aug 28th 2015, 13:39

mrmonteith

Joined: Aug 18th 2015, 16:03
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 0
I was just looking at this the other day. Hope this helps.

http://www.stoff.pl/
Michael

Back to Top

EXPLORE ARRL

Instragram     Facebook     Twitter     YouTube     LinkedIn