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1. e Future Passes This will bring up the dialogue window showing the summary for the next N passes N being a user configurable 35 Gpredict User Manual parameter see section 5 1 e Sky Track Checking this option will show the sky track of the satellite on the polar graph If you select this option again the sky track of the satellite will be hidden The polar view can show the sky tracks for any number of satellites at the same time When a satellite goes down i e disappears from the polar view its sky track will disappear too e Set Target Selecting this option will select the satellite as communication target This function is currently disabled Gpredict offers you many configuration options to customise the look of the polar view The global default settings can be modified in the preferences dialogue i e Edit gt Preferences gt Modules gt Polar View and the settings for the polar view in a specific module can be accessed via Module Pop Up gt Configure gt Properties gt Polar View A description of the configuration options is given below e Orientation This setting determines the orientation and direction of the polar graph The first letter defines the cardinal direction that should be placed at the top of the graph then it continues clockwise with the second third and fourth letters o N E S W default North is at the top South at the bottom East on the right side and West on the left side
2. o N W S E Same as the above but East and West swapped hence we have West on the right side o S E N W North and South swapped as compared to the default setting o S W N E Both North South and East West swapped as compared to the default setting e Extra Contents Using these setting you can determine which extra content should be displayed on the polar view o QTH Info Checking this box will show the name of the ground station in the upper left corner of the polar view The polar view on figure 4 3 shows sample since this is the name of the default ground station o Next Event Checking this box will show in the upper right corner which satellite will come up next as when it will come up The time is shown as a countdown to the event Figure 4 3 shows that the next satellite will be SUITSAT and that it will come up in 4 minutes and 10 seconds Please note that the countdown is not necessarily updated in real time Actually it is only updated every time the polar view is refreshed see description of refresh rates in section 2 3 3 Module Properties o Cursor Position If this option is set the polar coordinates of the mouse pointer will be displayed in real time in the lower left corner of the graph o Extra Az Ticks Enabling this option will show some extra Azimuth ticks axes on the polar graph at 30 intervals 36 Modules and Views e Colours These options allow you to change all colours used in the pola
3. In this state the module is put in its ae own window Radio Control j Antenna Control e Full screen In this state the module occupies ann CATE the whole screen configure You can freely toggle between these three states at Clone any time Go ahead and try them if you haven t already done so Delete The next entry in the pop up menu is Sky at a Close glance This function is intended to give you a quick Figure 2 3 The overview of which satellites are up now and which module pop up satellites will be up during the next 8 hours This function is described in section 2 5 The Time controller menu item pops up a small window see figure 2 4 containing widgets for Eeee ed lg controlling the time of the module By default the module will run in real Saas time but using the Time controller 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 you have the possibility to tun in 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 msec fo f simulated real time or manual time 76 7 28 29 30 31 control Time Controller iSS ox Throttle 1 TT The horizontal slider below the calendar allows you to quickly pan back and forward in time 2 5 hours from the current time J Real Time Reset lt 00 gt Figure 2 4 The time controller window The arrow buttons in the time controller determine in which direction the time should run The Throttle value determines the time compression factor A throttle value of 1 corresponds
4. sign text You can use any free text and characters Table 3 2 The not so common time format codes 25 Gpredict User Manual Format String Resulting Time String Y m d H M S 2006 07 23 21 22 00 Y j H M S 2006 204 21 22 00 b d Hh M Jul 23 21h26 Table 3 3 Examples of time format strings 3 2 3 Geographical Coordinates Geographical coordinates in gpredict e g ground station location and sub satellite points are specified using decimal degrees North for latitude and decimal degrees East for longitude This means that longitudes West of Greenwich are negative as are latitudes South of the Equator To avoid any endless discussions on whether this is the correct convention or not gpredict offers you the possibility to show geographical coordinates using N S E and W suffixes instead of signs You can enable this by checking the Use N S E W for geographical coordinates field Enabling this will show 12 34 East of Greenwich as 12 34 E while 12 34 West of Greenwich will be shown as 12 34 W 3 2 4 Measurement Units This option allows you to choose imperial units instead of the metric system i e miles instead of km and feet instead of meters Internally gpredict will always use the metric system and this setting will only affect how the data is presented 3 3 Ground Stations This page allows you to add edit and delete ground stations You can define as many groun
5. the transverter offset if any and the corrected frequency that should be on your radio i e SAT Doppler LO Note that Doppler correction is only applied if Track is enabled see below Similarly LO correction is applied if the selected device is Engage d see below To change the frequency just click on the proper arrow below or above a digit Radio 145 898 013 Hz Uplink 435 250 000 Hz er Ae ae eS ee Doppler 5928 Hz LO 407 MHz The Uplink area shows the control and status widgets for the satellite uplink It has the same properties as the Downlink area Note that the status widgets are updated even if you are using a receive only radio This is particularly useful if you are using radios where the frequency can not be set via CAT while they are in TX mode This is the case for the FT 817 if you intend to use an FT 817 you should configure it as RX only Gpredict will then only correct the downlink but will still display the corrected uplink so that you can applyt the correction manually while you are transmitting Radio 28 244 072 Hz Target VO 52 me Track Dutch U V Lin 7 T Az 272 24 Range 10554 km El 50 03 Rate 4 083 km s The Target area contains widgets for selecting the target object as well as the transponder for the selected target object You can select a new target at any time and any effects it might have on the radio settings will be applied instantaneously Note however th
6. transverter with your HF receiver in the 28 30 MHz range to track satellites in the 144 146 MHz range your LO Down frequency would be 144 28 116 MHz Similarly for T x Edit rotator configuration ox LO Up which is for uplink kj Port 4533 Az type 0 gt 180 gt 360 v 7 3 2 Antenna Rotator Configuration H Min Az 0 Max Az 360 The antenna rotator setup is similar to the Min El 0 Max El 90 radio setup except a few parameters that are S described below ef O Az type Figure 7 3 Rotator setup 56 Controlling Radios and Rotators By default gpredict assumes that the azimuth axis of the rotator goes from 0 to 360 with 0 pointing towards North and the center 180 pointing towards South There are however azimuth rotators that are centered around 0 which is North and go 180 i e their azimuth range is 180 to 180 Select 180 gt 0 gt 180 if you have one of these rotators and gpredict will automatically take this into account when tracking satellites with your rotator Min Max Az EI When you select Az type gpredict will automatically provide the proper ranges However if your rotator has a wider or narrower range for either Az or El you can specify it here 7 4 Controlling your Devices with Gpredict The radio and rotator control interfaces are attached to a specific module You can control one radio and one antenna rotato
7. 24 63 msec 210 06 295 399 44240 Sunlight Figure 4 5 The single satellite view 38 5 Advanced Pass Predictions 5 1 Customising the Prediction Parameters The parameters gpredict uses for predicting satellite passes in the future can be customised to a great extent To get access to these parameters go to Edit gt Preferences and click on the Predict button You will be presented with a notebook containing the prediction parameters organised in four notebook pages see figure 5 1 5 1 1 Pass Conditions The parameters on this page define how gpredict predicts future passes for satellites GPREDICT Preferences Predict K Pass Conditions Multiple Passes Single Pass Sky at a Glance General Minimum elevation 5 R deg Multiple Passes Modules Number of passes to predict 10 Passes should occur within 3 Interfaces Pass Details Time resolution Number of entries Satellite Visibility Twilight threshold 6 deg Always use real time for pass predictions Cancel OK Figure 5 1 Parameters that control pass predictions Minimum elevation This parameter define what gpredict should consider as a satellite pass If the elevation of the satellite stays below this threshold gpredict will discard 39 Gpredict User Manual the pass and not will include it in the list of passes Number of passes to predict This parameter defines how many passes gpredict should try to find when
8. 56 29 2009 10 01 21 11 04 00 14 34 29 80 195 50 339 25 VDE ae 42 LO7OFM 20243 3 867 13361 2009 10 02 07 24 31 2009 10 02 07 36 53 00 12 21 13 16 27 00 133 78 D 59191 4 22 GO75VI 20223 3 870 4890 2009 10 02 09 04 03 2009 10 02 09 19 19 00 15 15 66 49 16 67 189 06 D Daylight ae T T T T T g B 42 LNSSFK 20280 3 861 1316 2009 10 02 10 44 15 2009 10 02 10 58 21 00 14 05 28 24 11 50 238 05 D 9 76 IKOSCX 20314 3 855 2213 2009 10 02 12 24 34 2009 10 02 12 34 46 00 10 12 8 07 8 96 286 52 D 300 475 2 13 ON18BA 20168 3 878 96 2009 10 02 17 15 52 2009 10 02 17 27 25 00 11 33 11 60 90 00 353 72 DE 48 63 20 69 1 06 OOS0MI 20004 3 902 9683 2009 10 02 18 52 55 2009 10 02 19 07 44 00 14 49 41 09 136 95 347 36 VDE 133 34 17 80 240 60 h61 35TA 20228 3 867 389 2009 10 02 20 32 46 2009 10 02 20 47 50 00 15 04 42 92 183 94 339 55 V E 261 00 14 05 7 81 GKI7CL 20195 3 873 11405 2009 10 02 22 16 27 2009 10 02 22 26 57 00 10 30 7 65 239 63 324 62 VF 134 18 11 98 180 145 h 18 Li490R 20214 3 869 9549 he sky at a glance NO 29 70 CO54DI 20091 3 889 8936 TO SvF 130 13 82 EMs2ci 20043 3 895 3865 H noas W o M 7 71 Fl690T 19936 3 910 9903 NOAA 17 I BD m wr a lai 47 KH92RD 20297 3 858 6355 4 29 QM21D 19971 3 906 3601 H noaa 19 D a 20 58 21 01 21 03 21 06 21 08 57 70 BM16DR 20234 3 867 1137 H nom 18 B UTC 1 09 _ MG39NB 20233 3 867 2104 1 46 JE79FJ 20107
9. Predict Cancel OK Figure 7 1 Radio and rotator settings Click this button to add a new radio configuration You P Add New will get a small dialogue window as shown and explained in the following section section 7 3 1 Click this button to edit an existing configuration This 2 Edit brings up the same dialogue as when you add a new configuration but now the fields are filled with the values for the selected configuration 8 BR Click this button to delete an existing configuration The 54 Controlling Radios and Rotators configuration will be completely removed Note that any changes you make will not take effect until you press the OK button In case you Cancel the Preferences dialogue any changes you may have made to your radio and rotator settings will be reverted to the state before you opened the Preference dialogue You can configure as many radio and rotator devices as you have or want you will always be able to choose one specific device to use in a given situation during runtime 7 3 1 Radio Configuration Configuring a radio device is very simple see Figure 7 4 The four fields that are required are explained below Name A unique name for the configuration You can use alphanumeric characters as well as underscore and minus FS Edit radio configuration x Host Name The host name or IP address of the computer
10. a given module The only parameter controlling the behaviour of this function is the length of the time axis i e the time within which the passes should occur Besides that you can customise the colours used for each satellite The sky at a glance window will show up to 10 satellites from the given module GPREDICT Preferences Predict SS Pass Conditions Multiple Passes Single Pass Sky at a Glance Time General Find and show passes that occur within Colours Colour for satellite 1 Colour for satellite 6 Colour for satellite 2 Colour for satellite 7 Colour for satellite 3 Colour for satellite 8 Interfaces Colour for satellite 4 Colour for satellite 9 Colour for satellite 5 Colour for satellite 10 Predict Cancel Figure 5 5 Configuration options for the Sky at a glance function 43 Gpredict User Manual 5 3 Communication Windows This function is currently under development 5 4 The Advanced Predictor This function is currently under development 44 6 Updating the Orbital Elements 6 1 Overview Gpredict uses the NORAD SDP4 SDP4 algorithms to calculate the position of Earth orbiting satellites at any given time These algorithms require knowledge about the orbit of the satellite as well as the position of the satellite on the orbit at some time To a k a Epoch These data are included with gpredict in so called TLE files Unfortunately in the rea
11. comments questions and bug reports are highly appreciated There is a web forum at http forum oz9aec net where you can discuss everything related to gpredict and ask the community for help The gpredict website accessible at http gpredict oz9aec net has more information about other ways you can get support with your problems or how you can get in touch with the developers see under User Support 2 Getting Started with Gpredict 2 1 The Basic Idea The key idea in gpredict is the concept of modules A module in gpredict is the same as a document in a word processor application It is an object which has a certain number of satellites and a ground station associated to it Based on the geographical location of the ground station and the current time the module calculates the positions and other data for the satellites and displays it using various views organised in a layout GPREDICT Amateur File Edit Tools Help Amsat 144 Amateur 2008 09 20 14 37 59 ec a a A a OZ9AEC Next AO 27 AO 16 nesas Azimuth 167 50 Elevation 40 42 Slant Range 1151 km Range Rate 5 072 km sec Next Event LOS 2008 09 20 14 47 32 SSP Lat 48 40 N SSP Lon 11 15 E SSP Loc JN58NJ Footprint 6079 km Altitude 800 km Velocity 7 455 km sec Doppler 1692 Hz Sig Loss 133 62 dB Sig Delay 3 84 msec Mean Anom 110 63 Orbit Phase 155 58 Orbit Num 97456 Visibility Daylight Figure 2
12. erased when you commit your changes i e when you press the OK button If you delete an entry by mistake you can always bail out using the Cancel button This however will also cancel any other modifications you may have made during this session 3 4 TLE Update In order to make accurate calculations gpredict needs up to date Keplerian Elements TLE data for the satellites These data can be updated from the internet and gpredict can actually do most of the work for you The settings on this configuration page allows you to configure how gpredict should manage the update of the TLE files Most of the settings should be pretty self explanatory nevertheless they are described in details in chapter 6 Until then you can leave the values at their defaults 3 5 Message Logs Gpredict logs all run time messages into log files for later examination in case of debugging and error tracing The settings on this page allows you configure the logging level and whether old log files should be kept or deleted For everyday use you should keep the default settings In case you want to examine the current log file while gpredict is running select Log browser in the File menu Besides showing the current messages the log browser will show a nice summary of the number of errors warnings info and debug messages 28 4 Modules and Views 4 1 Data Fields Table 4 1 provides a complete reference for what kind of data fields i e satellite data
13. has a pop up menu associated to it You can activate the pop up menu by right clicking on a satellite The pop up menu is very similar to the one you have seen in section 4 2 1 for the list view except that there are a few items only applicable for the map view Following items are available in the satellite pop up menu for the map view e lt SATELLITE NAME gt Selecting this menu item brings up a small info window showing some static data about the satellite consisting of the Keplerian Elements e Show Next Pass This will bring up the dialogue window showing the details about the next upcoming pass for this satellite e Future Passes This will bring up the dialogue window showing the summary for the next N passes N being a user configurable parameter see section 5 1 e Highlight Footprint Selecting this option will highlight the area covered by the footprint of the satellite e Ground Track Selecting this option will show the ground track of the satellite on the map By default the ground track for the current orbit will be shown If you select this option again the ground track of the satellite will be deleted again The map view can show the ground tracks for any number of satellites at the same time and for more than one orbit The number of orbits can be configured in the preferences dialogue or the module settings editor 5 Satellites that are very close to the bottom or either side of the map have their names printed a
14. looking for future passes Passes should occur within This parameter sets the time limit within which the predicted passes should occur When the time variable in the prediction algorithm reaches this time limit gpredict will stop looking for passes even if it has not found the number of passes requested in the previous parameter These two parameter should therefore be thought of as either or i e gpredict will either stop when it has found X number of passes or when it reaches the time limit whichever comes first Time resolution When showing the details of a given pass gpredict will try to reach the time resolution specified with this parameter This resolution should be thought of as a lower limit the number of entries next option in the detailed pass prediction window will have precedence over this condition Number of entries This parameter defines the number of entries gpredict should display in the detailed pass prediction window The exact number might deviate from this but it will always be around this number Twilight threshold This parameter has influence on when gpredict considers a satellite to be visible Theoretically a satellite can be visible if it is in sunlight but the ground station is in darkness The problem is that darkness in this respect is not an absolute entity and this parameter defines the threshold for the elevation of the Sun at which the ground station is considered to be in darkness F
15. menu bar via Edit gt Preferences gt General gt Number Formats Figure 3 1 shows how the configuration page looks like in the dialogue 3 2 1 Show Local Time Instead of UTC By default gpredict shows the time and date in UTC Universal Time Coordinates If you check this box gpredict will show the Local Time instead of UTC Please note that Local Time is the time according to the locale settings in your operating system which is not necessarily the same as the local time at the selected ground station 3 2 2 Time Format This parameter offers you a very flexible way to define how the date and time should be displayed throughout the program The time format is specified using a format string consisting of any combination of characters and format codes The most commonly used format codes are listed in table 3 1 while table 3 2 lists the less common codes The label next to the format string entry box shows how the date and time will be displayed using the soecified format string This label is updated continuously as you type into the format string entry box Table 3 3 gives a few examples on how the time format codes can be used to create time format strings You are highly encouraged to experiment for yourself and use the Reset button to reset the format string to the factory default setting if something goes wrong 23 Gpredict User Manual Code Description a The abbreviate
16. using the default settings 34 Modules and Views N x 2006 08 14 20 07 01 sample Next SUITSAT in 04 10 3 VO 52 50 33 s LOS in 07 45 Figure 4 3 The polar view The satellites that are plotted on the polar view are selectable If you left click on a satellite it becomes selected changes colour and the remaining in range time for the selected satellite will be displayed in the lower right corner of the polar view The selected satellite on figure 4 3 is VO 52 and it will get out of range i e go below the horizon in 7 minutes and 45 seconds You can only have one satellite selected at a time thus clicking on an unselected satellite will clear any previous selection Clicking on a selected satellite will deselect it You can also right click on a satellite in order to bring up the satellite pop up menu shown on figure 4 4 The satellite pop up menu in the polar view gives you quick access to the following functions e lt SATELLITE NAME gt Selecting this menu item brings up a small info window showing AO 16 some static data about the satellite Currently this data consists of the orbital data Show next pass Keplerian Elements as well as uplink M Future passes downlink and beacon frequencies for some satellites Sky track Figure 4 4 Polar View e Show Next Pass This will bring up the dialogue window showing the details about the next upcoming pass for this satellite popup
17. x z x Views View 1 Map View w View 2 Polar View z View 3 List View v X Cancel ok Figure 2 7 The module properties editor The Layout page allows you configure the visual appearance of the module You can choose between four different layouts containing one two or three views It is up to you whether you use different or similar views in different areas of the layout The different views are explained in greater detail in section 4 2 15 Gpredict User Manual The Refresh Rates page allows you to tune how often the module should perform the calculations as well as how often the views should be updated The data refresh rate is specified in milliseconds This is the time between two calculation cycles Every cycle the module will recalculate the data for all satellites associated to the module The refresh rates for the views are specified in integer cycles of data refresh If the data refresh rate is 400 msec and the list view refresh rate is 2 cycles the list view will be refreshed every 800 msec The map and the polar view do not need to be refreshed very often For these views visible changes will normally occur over 3 4 seconds The list and the single satellite view on the other hand looks pretty cool when they are refreshed every 100 200 msec but be careful with the CPU load in particular if you have many modules open at the same time The rest of the pages in the module property editor defin
18. 1 The default main window showing a module with three views Gpredict User Manual When you start gpredict for the first time it opens a module called Amateur This module has a layout with three different views A map view a polar view and a single sat view see figure 2 1 Currently four different views are available in gpredict e The List View shows the satellite data in a list table having one satellite in each row It is well suited to present detailed information about many satellites at the same time The rows in the list view are sorted automatically at run time according to the selected sorting criteria e g elevation next event etc e The Map View shows the satellites and their footprints coverage area on a rectangular map It is intended to give a quick overview of which satellite is where at a given time The map view can also show the ground track of the satellites for several orbits e The Polar View or radar view shows the satellites within range on a polar plot The polar axis corresponds to the azimuth and the radial axis to the elevation It can be used to give you an idea of where to look for a satellite e The Single Satellite View can very efficiently show detailed information about one single satellite Its advantage over the list view is that it is much more efficient since it only shows one single satellite The module organises the views using a layout Gpredict offers you fours different la
19. 13 17 2157 6096 7 2007 01 02 02 08 04 58 54 15 24 2029 6096 2007 01 02 02 08 44 66 96 16 96 1931 6095 eas 2007 01 02 02 09 24 76 22 18 12 1870 6094 B05 087 02 08 0S Osa 2007 01 02 02 10 04 85 99 18 55 1847 6093 x s UTC X Close X Close X Close Figure 2 9 Data presented about the next upcoming pass The Future passes function gives you an overview of up to the next 10 passes occurring within the next 3 days The information you are given is the rise time AOS the set time LOS the duration maximum elevation and the azimuth at AOS and LOS Again all parameters including the number of passes to predict can be customised via the Preferences dialogue If you double click on a row in the Future passes dialogue a new window pops up showing the details for the pass you have clicked on This is the same window as you saw when you selected the Show next pass function but the pass details are now for the selected pass in the future which is not necessarily the first coming pass The data displayed in the pass prediction dialogues is static This means that the shown data will not be updated automatically if you leave the dialogues open You will have to request a new prediction as described above You may have noticed that the above mentioned pop up menu does not come up if you right click in the single be satellite view To bring up the pop up menu in the single satellite view you should click on the V icon r
20. 3 886 4240 Print H save x Close 3 47 FH37GC 20029 3 897 4057 5 18 12201 20141 3 880 1444 428854 0 330 _ AOS 2009 10 01 17 33 12 48 77 17 47 _IELIGF__20064 3 893 _6514 V Copyright 2001 2009 Alexandru Csete and Contributors All rights reserved This document is free you can redistribute it and or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation either version 2 of the License or at your option any later version This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE See the GNU General Public License for more details You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this document if not write to the Free Software Foundation Inc 675 Mass Ave Cambridge MA 02139 USA Revision History Date Issue Notes 10 05 09 1 1 Updated for Gpredict 1 1 24 May 2009 1 0 First official issue released with Gpredict 1 0 Table of Contents T Introd ction os kal Os nana Fala a a a a EEES E a A saioei 5 1 1 What iis Gpredict 22 aR Usa sa aa Ga esha lank va he Ga ease Soave a E Saa SISA GA Na NTRP ARES 5 1 2 Features Of Gpredict 144 sinsissnsisdssitsssssk an rkissaakkasndabinn Sn dna ani dna al SAO Al A al SEE Ga EEE EEE V 6 tS ADOUE this DOCUMOCME ee a r r k 6 1 4 Yo
21. E files need to be in this format 6 Actually the NASA two line format contains three lines for each satellite One line for the satellite name and two data lines There is also the NASA bare two line format which contains only two lines per satellite since it omits the line with the satellite name 45 Gpredict User Manual 6 2 Automatic Update from the Internet When your computer is connected to the internet updating the TLE elements is as easy as selecting Edit gt Update TLE gt Update from the internet menu item in the menu bar When you do that gpredict will by default fetch a subset of the TLE files available from http celestrak com and update the internal database using the downloaded files A small dialogue window showing the progress of the update process will pop up when you start the update Please don t interrupt the process by forcing this dialogue to close Sometimes when the network connection to the remote server is slow or otherwise bad it may take some time until gpredict decides to give up and cancel the update process There is a built in connection time out of 10 seconds per data file If gpredict fails to retrieve fresh TLE data the process will go through but at the end you will see that the number of satellites updated is 0 As mentioned earlier in this chapter it is rather important to have the TLE data updated at regular intervals Gpredict can help you remembering when it is time to update t
22. Gpredict User Manual Updated for Gpredict 1 1 by Alexandru Csete OZ9AEC GPREDICT NOAA WX redict Radio Contro Ble Edit Tools Help Downlink Uplink v U Iss NOAA WX V KR KAN R I K R r a Re E R k 2009 10 01 14 07 35 E 137 620 000 Hz 145 890 000 Hz a ryv vv vrvyrvyy vvv Doppler 2249 Hz LO 0 MHz Doppler 2384 Hz LO 0 MHz Radio 137 622 248 Hz Radio 145 892 383 Hz Target Settings Noaa 17 2 Tack 1 Device wxrx Engage APT o Jie 2 device none o Az 76 75 Range 8994 km El 37 39 Rate 4 899 km s Cycle 1000 E msec AOS in 19 36 Gpredi otat ontrol NC Elevation Ke ee oe ozac NO 1017 06 0 0 Ole vvvyyvy yev vv OZ9AEC N Next NOAA 15 NOAA15 br Read eee in 05 56 _ W Azimuth 141 47 Target Settings Elevation 16 67 R 4 Slant nange ae NOAA17 Track Device WXROT 2 Engage Next Event ess ATA 14 13 on cycle 1000 E msec za pcoming passes for NO 6121 km Snes Tolerance 5 00 6 deg 5 812 km AT 19 35 5 00 AOS LOS Duration Max El AOS Az LOS Az Vis ai GAI 37732 BTK 2009 10 01 17 38 15 2009 10 01 17 50 47 00 12 32 15 44 101 06 350 06 VDE 147 38 dB on SSP AR vel Ore 2009 10 01 19 15 54 2009 10 01 19 31 05 00 15 11 57 97 147 68 346 26 VDE 18 71 msec E Data Polar X Az EI 89 JL78WI 20602 3 814 4769 2009 10 01 20
23. Sn be ee o The Azimuth area allows you to control the Azimuth of the rotator device You can change the value by clicking on the corresponding arrows however if tracking is enabled your changes will be overridden with the Azimuth of the target satellite The bottom of the area contains a field showing the current Azimuth as read back from the rotator device If the device is not engaged this field will simply show instead of a number If there was error in the communication with hamlib this field will show ERROR Elevation A v A A 117076 v v v Read 40 61 abis v The Elevation area allows you to control the Elevation of the rotator device You can change the value by clicking on the corresponding arrows however if tracking is enabled your changes will be overridden with the Elevation of the target satellite The bottom of the area contains a field showing the current Elevation as read back from the rotator device If the device is not engaged this field will simply show instead of a number If there was error in the communication with hamlib this field will show ERROR Target AO 7 Track Az El AT 33 77 40 61 09 43 The Target area contains widgets for selecting the target object You can select a new target at any time and any effects it might have on the rotator settings will be applied instantaneously Note however that the target position is only appli
24. Teri to which your radio is connected to If this is a B the same computer on which gpredict is x running you can enter localhost REST PX only PTT status None VFO Up Down Not applicable Port The port number where rigctld is listening LO Down 0 S MHz By default rigctld uses port 4532 LO Up 0 2 MHz amp Clear Cancel Radio type yP Figure 7 2 Radio setup The type of this radio e RX only The radio should only be used as receiver This is useful if you have a radio where the TX frequency can not be adjusted via the CAT interface e g Yaesu FT 817 e TX only The radio should only be used as transmitter This option is only useful if you have a radio that is dedicated for uplink e Simplex TRX The radio should be used for both reception and transmission but only one at a time This option is useful for transceivers that can work in split mode and where the frequency can be adjusted via CAT regardless of whether you are in RX or TX mode For this option to work it is a prerequisite that Gpredict can read the PTT status via CAT e Duplex TRX The radio is a full duplex radio such as IC 910H FT 55 Gpredict User Manual 847 or TS 2000 PTT Status If you select any other option than None Gpredict will read the status of the PTT and act accordingly meaning that RX tuning will only be done if PTT is OFF and TX tuning will only be done while PTT is ON It is a
25. aaaaa 14 Figure 2 7 The module properties editor ss sseseesessersessessessesseseoseosessessrssrsersersessesersese 15 Figure 2 8 Satellite POPU Piss os re ees cee a R sas ea aes sh RR r 17 Figure 2 9 Data presented about the next UPCOMING pass siaisississsssssssssssa ssa aaaa 18 Figure 2 10 The sky at a glance a aaa ia isaisaasaastnstanssnnsnnsnnninndannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnannnnnannnainni 19 Figure 3 1 The preferences dialogue aaasaastastasisstsstsnasanstaniantnnnnnannnninninnnnnnnnnnna nana 22 Figure 3 2 The table showing the existing ground stations aaiaaisiasiastas asssssssassaaa 27 Figure 4 1 The list view illustrating the auto sort feature asaisaisssasssssssassas aaa 31 Figure 4 2 The map view using the default settings aaisaissssssasssasssassdassassdaa aaa 33 Figure 4 3 The polar VieW c ccccsssccsseccsssccessccnssccessccessceessceessceessceensesensceansceensseeseeensaeeees 35 Figure4 4 Polar View POPUPS svi sa ls oaeee e A alee avich wees oe a ales eda ar 35 Figure 4 5 The single satellite vieW 2aaasaaasasssasasasasasassssasanasanasnnsnnnannnnnnnnnnnnsnnnnnnnninna 38 Figure 5 1 Parameters that control pass predictions aaaaasiasississssssnsssnssana anadanaaan 39 Figure 5 2 Configuration options for multiple pass predictions sisii sisi sissssssa sasa 41 Figure 5 3 Confi
26. and it is very efficient to show detailed information for many satellites at the same time The list view shows all the satellites that are associated to its parent module Figure 4 1 shows a screen capture of a list view By default the list view shows the name azimuth elevation direction range time of next event either AOS or LOS altitude and orbit number for the satellites There are many more data columns available they are just hidden by default Table 4 1 on page 30 shows a full list of available data fields for the list view To change the global defaults use the preferences dialogue Edit gt Preferences gt Modules gt List View while the settings for each individual list view in a specific module can be changed via Module Pop Up gt Configure gt Properties gt List View One of the more interesting features of the list view is its ability to dynamically sort the rows using any of the visible columns as sorting criteria in both ascending and descending order By default the list view is sorted in ascending order using the satellite names as criteria that is the list is sorted in alphabetical order To sort the list according to another column you can simply click on the column header You can reverse the sorting order by clicking on the same column header again Note that the column that is used as sorting criteria is shaded differently than the other columns The list view on figure 4 1 is sorted by the elevation of th
27. ank range 1 gt to 12 n A single n newline character Use with care Either AM or PM according to the given time value not supported in all op locales P Either am or pm according to the given time value not supported in all locales r The complete calendar time using the AM PM format of the current locale This format is equivalent to I M S p R The hour and minute in decimal numbers using the format H M The number of seconds since the epoch i e since 1970 01 01 00 00 00 s UTC Leap seconds are not counted unless leap second support is available t A single Wt tabulator character T The time of day using decimal numbers using the format H M S u The day of the week as a decimal number range 1 through 7 Monday being 1 U The week number of the current year as a decimal number range 00 to 53 starting with the first Sunday as the first day of the first week V The ISO week number range 01 to 53 ISO weeks start with Monday w The day of the week range 0 to 6 Sunday being 0 W The week number of the current year range 00 to 53 starting with the j first Monday as the first day of the first week x The preferred date representation for the current locale X The preferred time of day representation for the current locale y The year without a century as a decimal number range 00 through 99 Y The year as a decimal number using the Gregorian calendar A
28. at the Doppler shift is only applied to the operating frequency if you enable the Track button Pressing the Tune button T will cause Gpredict to tune to the middle of the passband for the selected transponder Pressing the Lock Button L will lock the uplink and downlink so that any changes to one of them will update the other provided that the selected transponder is a transponder with a passband i e it doesn t work for beacons and single channel transponders 58 Controlling Radios and Rotators Settings 1 Device FT 817 1 v Engage 2 Device IC 765 TX v Cycle 1000 msec The Settings area contains widgets for selecting the radio devices from the ones you have configured see section 7 3 1 The Engage button is used to toggle the connection between the controller and the hamlib driver s Commands are sent to the radio device only if the device is engaged You can use up to two devices in any controller The 1 Device is the primary device and will be used as downlink and uplink depending on the device type and the selection in the 2 Device The 2 Device is the secondary device and is used for uplink only and therefore it only lists radios that are not of type RX only The code that communicates with hamlib runs in its own thread and is activated periodically the Cycle parameter defines the delay between two such cycles A value of 1 second should be adequate for most uses Note that
29. bove or on the side of the square as is the case for TBD and TBD on figure TBD 32 Modules and Views J 2006 08 27 14 56 49 Figure 4 2 The map view using the default settings Gpredict offers you many configuration options to customise the look of the map view The global default settings can be modified in the preferences dialogue i e Edit gt Preferences gt Modules gt Map View and the settings for the map view in a specific module can be accessed via Module Pop Up gt Configure gt Properties gt Map View A description of the configuration options is given below e Background Map This setting determines which map file should be used as background map The standard gpredict distribution includes a few maps but you can also use your own maps To select a new map click on the Select map button The map file has to be in a commonly used graphic format for example Portable Network Graphics PNG and should have Greenwich in the middle West to the left and East towards the right Besides that there are no restrictions on the map size or the aspect ratio e Extra Contents Using these setting you can determine which extra content should be displayed on the polar view e QTH Info Checking this box will show the name of the ground station in the upper left corner of the polar view The map view on figure TBD shows sample since this is the name of the default ground station e Next Event Checking this box w
30. casccssccseceuscuesessesecectecascsseecescaseuees 37 5 Advanced Pass Predictions aaasasss ssn nnannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnannnnnnnnnnnnnannnnnnninnnnna 39 5 1 Customising the Prediction Parameters a aaisaisaasaasiastasdsssssassananananasaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 39 Dall lk PASS ON GIONS renn a ea ae Socees RRR RR R SE 39 Bel 2 Multiple P assess aad GT TR Ras 40 ph Single PSS GS S d Coes als Soe OD Cua da Pae sde E TRR RRR 42 52 Sky ta GLA cens alarar k k EE A ci _ k x 43 5 3 Commu nication WiINdOWSs sereset oi iki ld EEE Del ddi Dn Jaa Dala DO Rdl Luar a ra 44 5 4 The Advanced Predictor aassisatscstansansnnnnnnannnnnnnannannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnannnnnnannnnnnnnasnandnnndiini 44 6 Updating the Orbital Elements aaisasssnstnnnnnnnsnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnannsnn 45 GJATA R R r a Se 45 6 2 Automatic Update from the Internet aaaaaaaiaississsssastastastssdanasananananasanaaaaaanaaaaa 46 6 2 L AUto Updatle sbssislibkadb sskalk skdak da sdn d Dada oa a a aa a a anr 46 6 2 2 Update from the Internet a aaiaaisiisiasiasiasssassansansaantantnnnnnnnananunanannnnnnanana na 47 6 3 Semi Automatic Update from Local Files a aaiaaasaasaasiasiasisnssnnsnanananananannnnnaaaaaaaa 48 6 4 Mah al Update n 35556255 alk ssd nin bln sik basa a ba ade He O k a shes WS Fala 48 7 Controlling Radios and Rotators aisazsssscnccnnncnnnnnnnn
31. ct os x 2006 08 14 19 56 14 H E Satellite Dir Range Next Event Orbit CUBESAT XI V 70 97 3 05 FO 29 319 93 paa RS 22 132 09 3 521 CUBESAT XI IV 276 93 3 75 SO 50 152 31 21 65 ISS ZARYA 57 83 p225 POSAT 249 42 35 02 LO 19 18 017 FSE AO 27 235 45 46 35 CUTE 1 204 47 47 61 AO 51 172 90 48 70 KO 25 215 52 P36765 SO 42 8 48 57 08 RS 12 13 180 08 65 92 FO 20 286 56 68 20 AO 16 121 84 74 58 CUTE 1 7 79 10 EFTER 2006 08 14 19 59 46 LO76EG 132 11 2006 08 15 03 11 20 FP97VR BE 2006 08 14 21 21 46 KM82XK 350 389 2006 08 15 02 59 22 HNO7WL 143 549 2006 08 14 21 42 32 KJ74KC 238 109 2006 08 14 21 12 57 ON17NR 278 055 2006 08 15 01 29 05 GI38DH 300 87 2006 08 15 04 10 19 RN42DI Sele 2006 08 15 01 35 37 GG33UR 250 97 2006 08 15 03 23 41 HE98WK 57 18 2006 08 14 20 17 38 KEISII 284 069 2006 08 15 01 42 51 GD77UP 28737 2006 08 15 07 25 34 AJ26MH 127 10 2006 08 14 20 31 42 JB60EK 296 04 2006 08 14 20 50 50 CFO6FW 216 66 2006 08 15 03 41 02 PC89jR 221 04 2006 08 15 04 50 49 REO3DD 321 97 e 33 3266 42 2633 266 2 VL VVUVVVVLVMVYVVVVM A mM wn Figure 4 1 The list view illustrating the auto sort feature 4 2 2 The Map View The map view is intended to give you a quick overview of which satellite is 31 Gpredict User Manual where at any given time The map view shows both the pos
32. currently tracked by this module are listed in the right side of the configuration window while the available satellites that can be tracked are listed on the left side of the window You can move a satellite from one list to the other by double clicking on it or by clicking on the arrow buttons between the two lists Gpredict has approximately 1200 satellites in its database that you can choose from To help you locate a specific satellite you can use the Search field as well as the Group filter located above the list of available satellites When you start typing a satellite name I the Search field Gpredict will search as you type and highlight the satellite that matches your search The search is case insensitive 14 Getting Started with Gpredict You should be careful not to select too many satellites for one module otherwise your module may become clumsy Too many satellites may also decrease the performance in particular if you are using a map view Up to 10 15 satellites per module seems to be a good number maybe less if you use the map view 2 3 3 Module Properties In order to edit the look and feel of the module click on the Properties button This will bring up a window showing the module properties grouped in a notebook Figure 2 7 below shows a screen capture of the module properties editor Module Properties Refresh Rates List View Map View Polar View Single Sat View Default Layout
33. d stations as you want but you need at least one You can always choose between the pre defined ground stations when you create or configure a module Figure 3 2 shows how the corresponding configuration page looks like in the preferences dialogue The page shows the existing ground stations in a table For each entry the table shows the name latitude longitude altitude weather station and whether the ground station is the default one or not The table also shows a column called QRA This is the Maidenhead locator square corresponding to the specified location Gpredict does not store the Maidenhead locator info instead it calculates it automatically from the latitude and longitude Below the table there are three buttons namely Add New Edit and Delete As their names suggest these buttons are there for adding editing and for deleting entries in the table 2 Default ground station has no particular meaning in gpredict except that this location will be used when no explicit selection is made for a module or prediction function 26 Customising Gpredict Name Location Lat Lon sample Copenhagen Denmark 55 6167 12 6500 OZ9AEC Esbjerg Denmark 55 2708 8 8750 1 z f Q E m a t erfa 3 o n v l v a n PE addnew Edt Delete gt GPREDIGT Preferences General Number Formats Ground Stations TLE Update Message Logs 6 Defau
34. d weekday name according to the current locale A The abbreviated month name according to the current locale B The full month name according to the current locale c The preferred calendar time representation for the current locale d The day of the month as a decimal number range 01 to 31 e The day of the month padded with blank range 1 to 31 F The date using the format Y m d H The hour as a decimal number range 00 to 23 m The month as a decimal number range 01 to 12 M The minute as a decimal number range 00 to 59 S The seconds as a decimal number range 00 through 60 z Numeric time zone e g 0600 or 0100 Z The abbreviated time zone e g CEST or GMT Table 3 1 Most common format codes 24 Customising Gpredict Code Description C The century of the year D The date using the format m d y of The year corresponding to the ISO week number but without the century g range 00 through 99 G The year corresponding to the ISO week number Similar to Y h The abbreviated month name The action is the same as for b I The hour as a decimal number range 01 to 12 j The day of the year range 001 to 366 k The hour as a decimal number like H but padded with blank range 0 gt S to 23 The hour as a decimal number like I but padded with bl
35. driver works properly may cause serious damage to your hardware and for the A surrounding environment Regardless of whether your setup works or not please provide feedback to the developers via the Gpredict Froum at http forum oz9aec net 7 For radio control only you can use hamlib version 1 2 7 but for antenna rotator you will need version 1 2 8 or later At the time of writing hamlib 1 2 8 has not been released yet However you can safely use the development version of the code from http hamlib sourceforge net bleeding edge use one from 20 Sep 2008 or later 49 Gpredict User Manual 7 2 Hamlib Tutorial This section gives you an introduction to hamlib and in particular to the command line utilities that come with it It is very important that you know how to use these tools otherwise you will not be able to configure gpredict properly If you are already familiar with the hamlib command line utitlities you can skip this section Hamlib is a set of libraries that provide low level radio and antenna rotator drivers for applications such as gpredict Besides the libraries hamlib includes a few command line utilities that allow testing of the drivers These are e rigctl allows you to send commands to your radio from the command line e rotctl allows you send commands to your antenna rotator from the command line e rigctld allows you to send commands to your radio via a network interface usi
36. e satellites and 30 Modules and Views the small arrow in the column header pointing up indicates that the list is sorted in descending order When the list is sorted in ascending order the small arrow points down Right clicking on row in the list view brings up the satellite pop up menu that gives you access to the following functions e lt SATELLITE NAME gt Selecting this menu item brings up a small info window showing some static data about the satellite consisting of the Keplerian Elements e Show Next Pass This will bring up the dialogue window showing the details about the next upcoming pass for this satellite e Future Passes This will bring up the dialogue window showing the summary for the next N passes N being a user configurable parameter see section 5 1 The list view has rather few configuration options Besides the data fields described earlier there is one more configuration parameter that should be mentioned namely the Enable Rules Hint in List Views option This option tells the theme engine of the desktop manager that the list view requires users to read across rows and associate cells with one another By default the theme engine will then render the list with alternating row colours making it easier to distinguish the rows see figure 4 1 The exact behaviour depends on your desktop theme This setting is only available in the global configuration dialogue and it applies to all list views in gpredi
37. e server here 3 Files to fetch A list of files that should be downloaded from the remote server The files should be separated by a semicolon Currently gpredict only supports updates from TLE files that are in the NASA two line format plus a third line for the satellite name and you should ensure that the data is in the correct format wherever you do your updates from Wrong format will not crash gpredict but it will not update anything either There is one potentially dangerous shortcoming in the current implementation of TLE updates from the internet namely authentication If either the remote server or your proxy server requires authentication the only way to specify the user name and password is to include them into the URLs protocol user password example com path Be warned that the URL string and thereby your user name and password will be stored as clear text in the gpredict configuration file which may be readable by anybody who has access to your computer To help this you can change the permissions of the gpredict cfg file so that only you have read and write permissions on it At the same time please submit a feature 47 Gpredict User Manual request at http sourceforge net projects gpredict asking us to implement better handling of passwords in gpredict if enough people complain about this we will eventually have to do something about it 6 3 Semi Automatic Update from Local Files If you can
38. e the look and feel of the views Most of the parameters are self explaining and you should not be afraid of experimenting with the different settings If you somehow end up with a useless configuration you can always reset to the default values by clicking on the Reset button that is available on all pages Chapter 4 describes the modules in more details and also gives a detailed description of the configuration parameters 16 Getting Started with Gpredict 2 4 Creating a New Module In order to create a new module select File gt New Module in the menu bar This will bring up the same dialogue as you saw while customising an existing module in the previous section see figure 2 5 except that here you have to enter a new name for the module Besides the name you will also need to select the observer location and the satellites you wish to track with the new module Of course you can also customise the new module as described in the previous section When you are finished click OK and the new module will open in the notebook 2 5 Predicting Satellite Passes 2 5 1 Upcoming Passes for a Satellite In order to predict satellite passes occurring in the near future you have to right click on a satellite in RS 22 any view This brings up a pop up menu for the selected satellite and in this pop up menu you can select either the Show next pass or the Future passes menu item Figure 2 8 shows how the satellite pop up menu
39. ed if you enable the Track button The AT field shows the time left until AOS or LOS in HH MM SS format Settings Device Cycle Tolerance TESTROT A v Engage 1000 1 00 The Settings area allows you to select one of your rotator devices that you have configured see section 7 3 2 The Engage button is used to toggle the connection between the controller and the hamlib driver Commands are sent to the rotator device only if the device is engaged The code that communicates with hamlib runs in its own thread and is activated periodically the Cycle parameter defines the delay between two such cycles A value between 2 5 seconds should be adequate for most uses The Tolerance parameter can be used to specify the difference between set and get positions that you can tolerate When the difference between the set and get values exceeds this parameter a command is sent to the rotator The value of this parameter should be set according to your hardware 61 Gpredict User Manual characteristics i e no need to set the tolerance to 0 1 if your rotator precision is 1 and your antenna beam width is 25 Note that when the controller algorithm detects 5 subsequent errors in the communication with hamlib the device will be automatically disengaged OZ9AEC N The Polar Plot area on the right side of the window is provided to guide you while you are tracking a satellite I
40. entation integrates gpredict well into modern computer desktop environments including Linux BSD Windows and Mac OS X Free software licensed under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License allowing you to freely use it learn from it modify it and re distribute it About this Document This document is intended to give a complete description of all the functionalities in gpredict as seen from a user s perspective Chapter 2 gives a quick introduction to the core functions and features in gpredict It introduces the concept of modules and views which are the key objects in gpredict Reading this chapter should make users able to perform real time satellite tracking and some basic orbit predictions using gpredict Chapter 3 describes the top level configuration options that allow Introduction 1 4 users to customise the overall behaviour of gpredict Chapter 4 gives a more in depth description of the modules and the views It also describes how to customise each individual module Chapter 5 describes the pass prediction functions in gpredict including the pass condition parameters used by the prediction engine Chapter 6 describes how you can update the Keplerian elements for the satellites in the gpredict database Chapter 7 describes how to setup and operate gpredict with your radios and antenna rotators Your Feedback is Appreciated Both gpredict and this user manual is work in progress Your
41. f signal the time when the satellite comes within range Az Azimuth the angle in the horizontal plane tangential plane to the surface of Earth relative to North with positive direction towards East CAT Computer aided transmission A term often used when a computer controls a communication radio device El Elevation the vertical angle between a vector pointing toward the horizon and a vector pointing towards a satellite The horizon is 0 and zenith is 90 Full duplex A communication device radio where tranmission and reception can occur at the same time Hamlib Ham Radio Control Libraries see http hamlib sf net LO Local oscillator In gpredict it is used to specify the frequency offset introduced by using a transverter LOS Loss of signal the time when a satellite goes out of range PTT Push to talk RX Receiver TCA Time of closes approach the time when the distance to a satellite is shortest TLE Term used for the data files that contain Keplerian elements for a satellite orbit TRX Transceiver TX Transmitter 65
42. g distance footprint and visibility just to mention a few Figure 1 1 shows a diagram of the core functionality of a satellite tracking program Keplerian Elements Size and shape i of the orbit Solve Kepler s i Equation of Orientation of the Orbital Motion orbit in space Position of satellite i Position of the satellite on the orbit path _ Date and time when Perturbations the satellite was there Current date and time j Latitude and longitude of ground station Azimuth and Elevation from ground station to satellite Simple vector calculations Figure 1 1 Functional overview of a satellite tracking program Gpredict like any other satellite tracking program takes three kinds of input 1 Keplerian Elements describing the satellite orbit as well as the position and velocity of the satellite at a given time to 2 Position of the ground station on Earth 3 The date and time at which the satellite position and velocity should be calculated Given the data above gpredict calculates the position and velocity of any Earth orbiting satellite using the NORAD SGP4 SDP4 algorithms These algorithms solve Kepler s equation of orbital motion and apply various corrections to compensate for irregular effects like the shape of Earth and gravitational influence from other celestial bodies Gpredict has several ways of presenting the calculated satellite data to the user It ca
43. gpredict can calculate and which views and functions can show them to the user Available in List Map Polar Single Predict Data Field View View View Sat dial Satellite Name V V V V V Catalogue Number V V Azimuth V V V V Elevation V V V V Direction V V V Right Ascension V V V Declination V V V Range km V V V Range Rate km s V V v SSP Latitude V v V V SSP Longitude V v V V SSP Maidenhead Locator V V V V Footprint km V v V V Ground Track v Sky Track V Altitude km V V V Velocity km s V V V Doppler Shift 100 MHz Hz V V V Signal Loss dB V V V Signal Delay ms V V V Mean Anomaly V V V 4 The right ascension can also be displayed in hh mm ss or hh mm mm format 29 Gpredict User Manual Available in List Map Polar Single Predict Data Field View View View Sat dial Orbit Phase V V V Visibility V V V Ground Station Info v V Cursor Track vV V Next Event AOS or LOS hms V v V V V AOS hms V V V LOS hms V v V V V TCA hms V Pass Duration hms V Maximum Elevation V Azimuth at AOS LOS V Table 4 1 Data field availability in the different views 4 2 Views 4 2 1 The List View The list view shows the data organised in a list table It shows one satellite per row
44. guration options for single pass predictions aaiasiisssasssssssassassaaa 42 Figure 5 4 The sky at a glance aiaaisiasiasiasiastssasnnsansaanunatnndnannanannnnannannannnnnlnnanaaaaaaaaa 43 Figure 5 5 Configuration options for the Sky at a glance function as iss sa ssss seas 44 Figure 6 1 Configuration options for TLE updates aaiaaaasaiasssasssasasassassasdasasdaaaaaaaaa 46 Figure 6 2 Selecting a directory to update the TLE data from sai ss iss ass sas sasa 48 Figure 7 1 Radio and rotator settings aaiaaiasass asssasssassanssanasasadasaanaaanaaasadasaaaaaalaaaa 54 FIGUIE 7 27 Rad10 Ss6l Dio seats evan wes ces vac ueuein cusses l wh R dale oh R R NR 55 Pigure 32 ROtALOr SCtUp iicccsecdtsde ide eed cas k r tau bs ab kra a sa a 56 Figure 7 4 The radio Control interface aaa2aiaaaiasasassssssasasasasasanaananananaaanaanananaaaaa aaa aaa 57 Figure 7 5 The rotator control interface 2aiaaaaasaisssasssasanasanasnnssnasannnanannnasnnaasnnaaannlaaa 60 1 Introduction 1 1 What is Gpredict Gpredict is a real time satellite tracking and orbit prediction program A satellite tracking program is a computer program that predicts the position and velocity of a satellite at a given time using a mathematical model of the orbit Once the position and velocity of the satellite is known other data can be calculated for example bearin
45. he TLE data by reminding you once per week that it is now time to a TLE update This default behaviour can be changed in the preferences dialogue see Edit gt Preferences gt General gt TLE Update Figure 6 1 shows how this configuration page looks like GPREDICT Preferences General Number Formats Ground Stations TLE Update Genereal Auto Update Check the age of TLE data Weekly v If TLEs are too old Notify me O Perform automatic update in the background Interfaces Modules Update from the Internet Remote server http www celestrak com NORAD elements Predict Proxy server Files to fetch amateur txt cubesat txt galileo txt geo txt gps ops txt iridium txt military txt radar txt Figure 6 1 Configuration options for TLE updates 6 2 1 Auto Update These settings define how gpredict should check the age of TLE data and what it should do when it finds that the TLE data is getting out of date First you can determine how often gpredict should check the age of the TLE data Possible choices are Daily Weekly Monthly and Never The 46 Updating the Orbital Elements default value is weekly and it seems to be a good update frequency for most users Second you can define what gpredict should do when it decides that it is time to update the TLE data The default and most obvious action is to send a notification to the user This is done by popping up a dialogue box with the reminder
46. ich satellites are tracked in this module Figure 2 5 shows a screen shot of the module configuration window Note that you can not change the name of a module here If you want to rename a module create a clone and then delete the original 12 Getting Started with Gpredict EN Edit Module EX Module Name Ground Station sample g cA Satellites Search l Hint Double click on any satellite to move it to the other box lt gt Group Amateur Radio Available Satellites Selected Satellites AAU CUBESAT g AO 27 ANDE CASTOR SPHERE AO 51 ANDE POLLUX SPHERE FO 29 AO 10 ISS AO 16 S0 50 AO 24 R VO 52 AO 27 Ki AO 40 Saat AO 5 AO 51 v Properties Cancel of OK Figure 2 5 The module configuration window 2 3 1 Setting Up the Ground Station Below the module name you will find the name of the ground station i e the geographical location that is used as reference point in the calculations It is important to define the position of the ground station accurately since this it is one of the key input parameters in gpredict The sample module uses a ground station called sample which defines a place in Denmark To add your own ground station click on the button located right of the ground station name This should pop up a small dialogue window as shown on figure 2 6 where you can enter the data for your ground station The only requ
47. ight next to the satellite name 2 5 2 The Sky at a Glance The sky at a glance is a convenience function in gpredict that can show you a quick overview of what satellite passes you can expect at your location between now and the next X hours An example is shown on Figure 2 10 below You can activate this function via the module popup menu and there are more details about configuring this function in chapter 5 Advanced Pass Predictions 18 Getting Started with Gpredict The sky at a glance Amateur Wao 27 H H10 16 H H vo 52 AO 51 E H 10 7 o Figure 2 10 The sky at a glance 2 6 Moving On If you have read through this section carefully you should have a good understanding of the basic functions in gpredict as well as some understanding of how they work The following chapters of this manual will continue with more detailed descriptions of all functions in gpredict some of which have not been covered in this introductory section Once you get used to the basic functionalities in gpredict you should definitely go on and read the rest of the manual too Have fun 19 3 Customising Gpredict 3 1 Overview On one hand gpredict tries to be very simple and easy to use not requiring any lengthy configuration and set up procedures runs out of the box On the other hand gpredict tries to let the users customise the look and feel of the application down to the lowest details Some people would say tha
48. ill show in the upper right corner which satellite will come up next as when it will come up The time is shown as a countdown to the event Figure 4 2 shows that the next satellite will be ISS ZARYA and that it will come up in 06m56s Please note that the countdown is not necessarily updated in real time Actually it is only updated every time the map view is refreshed see description of refresh rates in section 2 3 3 Module Properties 33 Gpredict User Manual e Cursor Position If this option is set the latitude and longitude corresponding to the position of the mouse pointer will be displayed in real time in the lower left corner of the map e Grid Lines Enabling this option will draw the grid lines on the map The grid lines will be drawn for every 30 e Colours These options allow you to change all colours used in the map view You can pick a colour using a colour selector by clicking on the button showing the coloured rectangle Note that the colours are specified using their red green and blue components and an additional alpha channel The alpha channel determines the transparency of the colour Colours which are very transparent may not be clearly visible on the colour picker button as is the case for the default Axes Circles colour Following colours can be set o Ground Station This colour is used to draw the small square and label at the position of the current ground station o Grid This colour is used
49. ired parameter here is the Name which you have to enter according to the same rules as the module name Optionally you can also enter a Description and the Location name the latter could be a combination of the city and the country of the location 13 Gpredict User Manual Edit ground station data D Xx Description Location f Select Latitude 0 0000 2 North Longitude 0 0000 east o Locator Altitude o 2 m asl Weather St F Select Figure 2 6 The ground station editor window For your convenience gpredict offers you the possibility to select a location from a predefined list The list can be accessed via the Select button right next to the Location field This is useful if you have no idea of the geographical coordinates of your location In that case you can simply select the nearest city from the list Instead of entering the latitude and longitude of your location you can also enter the Maidenhead locator grid square in the Locator field Doing so will automatically update the latitude and longitude fields When you are done click OK to return to the module configuration Your newly created ground station should be selected as location for this module 2 3 2 Selecting the Satellites Next step in the module configuration is to select which satellites should be tracked in this module The satellites
50. ition of the satellites and their footprints Moreover the map view can also show information about the current ground station the next event i e which satellite comes up next as well as information about the selected satellite Figure 4 2 shows how the map view looks like using the default settings As you can see the satellites are shown as small yellow squares with their name is printed just below the square The footprints of the satellites is drawn using the same colour as the satellite mark and label and the area covered by the footprint is highlighted using transparent white colour The footprint of a satellite is the area on the surface of the Earth where the satellite is visible On a sphere the footprint would be a circle but since the map view projects the sphere to a rectangular surface the footprints will only look like a circle when the satellite is near the Equator As you can see on figure 4 2 satellite AO 51 is drawn in white instead of yellow This means that AO 51 is selected You can select a satellite by simply clicking on it with the left mouse button You can click anywhere within its footprint area The selected satellite will have its next AOS or LOS time shown in the lower right corner of the map view Selecting a satellite will clear any other selection that is you can have only one satellite selected at a time You can also clear your selection by clicking once more on the selected satellite Each satellite
51. l communication e g data bits stop bits handshake and so on l list Lists all supported radio with their model number V Set the verbosity level of output messages The highest level is 5 corresponding to vvvvv and in this mode hamlib will output all information available Table 7 1 Most common rigctl command line options Once you are in rigctl it will prompt you for a command to enter To get a list of available commands type a question mark In order to check the driver for using it with gpredict you should at least check that the set get frequency and get ptt commands work properly You can do this with F set freq f get freq and t get ptt commands 7 2 2 Rotctl Rotctl is very similar to rigctl in terms of command line options the only significant difference being that you can not specify the CI V address Once you have the rotctl command prompt you can set and get the position of your rotator using P and p As with rigctl you can get the full list of available commands by typing At the rotctl command prompt 7 2 3 Rigctld and Rotcld Rigctld and rotctld are similar to rigctl and rotctl except that they act as a TCP IP server and do not present you with a command prompt They take the same command line arguments for specifying the connection to the hardware In addition to that rigctld and rotctld take an optional parameter t 1234 or port 1234 to allow the user to specify which TCP po
52. l world the dynamics of an Earth orbiting satellite can only be approximated at least within reasonable time limit and the SGP4 SDP4 algorithm is no exception to it As the time difference to Epoch increases the calculation errors become more and more significant in particular for satellites in low Earth orbit few hundred km Therefore the TLE files containing orbital elements at Epoch must be updated regularly in order to stay up to date Depending on the intended use of gpredict an update frequency between 1 and 4 weeks is reasonable Gpredict offers you three different ways to update the orbital elements at Epoch To 1 Automatic updates from the web via HTTP or FTP This is the most convenient way to update the orbital elements since gpredict will automatically download the latest data and update the local database 2 Automatic updates from local files This method can be used to update from files that have been acquired from sources that can not be accessed with gpredict e g email 3 Manual update using the built in orbital elements editor This is definitely the least preferred way for updating orbital elements nevertheless the method is useful for adding your own satellites to the gpredict database and experiment with satellite orbits Each of these methods are described in details in the following sections Gpredict stores the orbital elements in the NASA NORAD two line format and the data you use to update the TL
53. looks like when you right click on a satellite in the map view The satellite popup for other views look slightly different however there will always be two menu items for Figure 2 8 Satellite predicting the upcoming passes popup E Show next pass Fl Future passes Highlight footprint Ground Track The Show next pass function gives you detailed information on the first coming pass including the azimuth elevation range and footprint during the course of the pass The data is shown in a table as well as on a polar and an Az El plot see figure 2 9 You can configure gpredict to show other data in this dialogue select Edit gt Preferences and go to the Predict gt Single Pass page Section 5 1 contains more details on how to customise and fine tune the future pass prediction engine 17 Gpredict User Manual Pass details for AO 27 orbit 69176 x a Pass details for AO 27 orbit 69176 x w Pass details for AO 27 orbit 69176 x E azel E Data azel E Data e Polar Time Az El Range Footp sample N T 02 13 32 2007 01 02 02 03 24 23 82 0 03 3310 6098 on T T T T T Az El 2007 01 02 02 04 04 26 90 2 02 3090 6098 2007 01 02 02 04 44 30 42 414 2877 6098 x 2007 01 02 02 05 24 34 48 6 35 2675 6098 2007 01 02 02 06 04 39 20 8 63 2485 6097 t E 2007 01 02 02 06 44 44 71 10 92 2311 6097 2007 01 02 02 07 24 51 12
54. lt v Cancel OK Figure 3 2 The table showing the existing ground stations To add a new ground station click on the Add New button This will bring up the dialogue shown on figure 2 6 with all fields initially empty You can proceed by doing the following 1 Enter a short name for the ground station using the characters a z A Z 0 9 hyphen and underscore This name will also be used as file name and it must be unique 2 Enter the coordinates by either o Manually entering the latitude and longitude or o Entering the Maidenhead locator square or o Selecting a location from the built in list Click the Select button right next to the Location field to get a list of major cities around the World 1 If you wish you can fill out the optional fields too o Description o Location o Altitude o Weather station 3 If you enter the name of an existing observer the data will be overwritten with no further warnings 27 Gpredict User Manual Clicking on the Edit button will bring up the same dialogue as when clicking on the Add New button but the fields will be filled out with the values from the selected ground station The ground station editor behaves in exactly the same way as when you add a new location If you click on the Delete button the selected entry will be removed from the table immediately The data will still exist on the disk and will only be
55. n show the position footprint i e coverage area and ground track of the satellites on maps it can show detailed satellite data in tables Gpredict User Manual and it can also show the satellites within range on a polar plot radar screen The next section gives an overview of the features and functionality of gpredict 1 2 1 3 Features of Gpredict Fast and accurate real time satellite tracking using the NORAD SGP4 SDP4 algorithms No software limit on the number of satellites or ground stations Nice presentation of the satellite data using maps tables and polar plots radar views Allows you to group satellites into modules each module having its own visual layout and being customisable on its own Of course you can use several modules at the same time Efficient and detailed predictions of future satellite passes Prediction parameters and conditions can be fine tuned by the user to allow both general and very specialised predictions Allows you to track satellites in real time simulated real time or manual time control Exhaustive configuration options allowing advanced users to customise both the functionality and look amp feel of the program Automatic updates of the Keplerian elements from the web via HTTP and FTP or from local files Support for automated ground station operation providing both Doppler tuning for radios and antenna rotator control Robust design and multi platform implem
56. nannnnninnnnannanainia 24 Table 3 2 The not so common time format Codes siasiasiaaisaisatssasiassanasanasaaasaaaaaaaaaa 25 Table 3 3 Examples of time format strings aiaaiaaisaistissasiasintsnssaasaasaannannnnanannnaananaina 26 Table 4 1 Data field availability in the different vieWs auasiasiasissssasssasssasasasasaaaana 30 Table 7 1 Most common rigctl command line options aaasaasaasississssssssasasasasasaaaaaaaana 53 Table 7 2 Operating modes of the radio controller aaiaaasiasiasisssssssssssassasdasdaaaaaaaaa 60 Table 7 3 Operating modes of the rotator controller siasiaisais is assassassssssssaasaaaaaa 64 List of Figures Figure 1 1 Functional overview of a satellite tracking program sisisisisisissa asasarar 5 Figure 2 1 The default main window showing a module with three views 9 Figure 2 2 The four different layouts in gpredict axiaaisaisatstasiassssasnsssnssana anakanana 10 Figure 2 3 The modul Pop UDe seisine niei E EE N E E EE E E E R E 11 Figure 2 4 The time controller windoW sssesssssersseessreseresersseesereseresersseseeseseeseseseeseseesees 11 Figure 2 5 The module configuration WindoW aaaaaaaaaaaaasassasssasasasanasaaassasadasdasasdaaasaaaaa 13 Figure 2 6 The ground station editor Window aaaaaaaasasas sassasssasasasasaaassasasdasasdaaaa
57. ng TCP IP protocol e rotctlid allows you to send commands to your antenna rotator via a network interface using TCP IP protocol For testing the hamlib driver with your radio and or rotator you will use rigctl and rotctl For setting up gpredict to control your devices you will use rigctld and rotctld All of these command line utilities have their own manual pages that can be accessed by typing man rigctl in a terminal While this tutorial gives you a brief introduction to hamilb so that you know just enough to configure gpredict I strongly encourage you to study these manual pages for a complete reference about these tools Before you can use the hamlib tools you will need to gather some info about your devices These are Model number This is the Hamlib ID of your particular radio or rotator The complete list of supported radios and rotators and their hamlib ID can be obtained by executing rigctl list or rotctl list If you are human and cannot read the whole list while it scrolls by try using grep or less For example to find the ID of the YAESU FT 847 try rigctl list grep FT 847 50 Controlling Radios and Rotators 101 Yaesu FT 847 0 2 Alpha This tells you that the FT 847 has model ID 101 the driver has version number 0 2 and is considered to be in Alpha state meaning that it hasn t been tested using a real radio Device This is the Uni
58. ngaged or not Similarly you can at any time select a new target even when your rotator device is engaged An overview of the operating modes of the antenna rotator controller algorithm is given in Table 7 3 below 62 Controlling Radios and Rotators Track Engage Description OFF OFF Controller widgets are not updated with respect to target position No commands are sent to the rotator and the current rotator position is not read back either ON OFF Controller widgets are updated with target position but no commands are sent to the rotator Current rotator position is not read back either If the target satellite is out of range the controller widgets will be set to the position where the satellite is expected to appear at the next AOS ON ON Controller widgets are updated with target position and the position is sent to the rotator The current position is read back from the rotator device If the target satellite is out of range the controller widgets will be set to the position where the satellite is expected to appear at the next AOS OFF ON Controller widgets are not updated with target position but commands are sent to the rotator and current position is read back This mode can be used to manually control your rotator Table 7 3 Operating modes of the rotator controller 63 Glossary 8 Glossary Term Meaning AOS Acquisition o
59. nnnnnannnnnnnnannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnna 21 BL QV EL VIC Will a r veh erties vous ch vetten r a r EANA E EEEE 21 3 2 Number Formats rarer nan aneio Rae Bao OR ess IN a TES Be Ue id tees we AGES eas Sen sel 23 3 2 1 Show Local Time Instead Of UTC Sslladak sk a ssk ubssk b Eiei e s Vevdsas dita tenun 23 3 2 2 Time Format aerenca nepeg ea pk a R RR A RRR RR R RRR RR A RRR R L beka 23 3 2 3 Geographical Coordinates aaiaaasiasiasiassssnssasansnnstsaisannnnannninninnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnai a 26 3 2 4 Measurement UNIts ccscsscsscscescescescescescescescescescescescescessessescessscessessessecsceseess 26 3 3 Ground Stations cdacdisc ented ictest bos e kkk kkk e E EE ECE 26 34 TEE Update aaa EEA delve De seus EANA A ova EA arr 28 3 MESSI gE LOGS n oA L R OOE OA ONT ORAA RR ROAS PERNATAN E ar 28 A Modules and Views aaanassstvscncsnannnnnnninnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsnnnnnnnnnnins 29 4 1 Data Fields sci si ssVisis asl sls lsnsa is Vi i s ad eased Se ead esas A laa laa aaa Ee eas 29 4 2 VICWSi EE E E E E E EE E E E E gua seesed saddectes saved sivedabereese 30 4 2 The List ViWw cccecccssccsscosscostcnsccseccsscouseasceseetsceutcanccusetescetenssensssesceasensscasssasesees 30 42 2 Fhe Map View eao sin ie ies la ils vedic lace Gla ES TAE FO a aR ka lsk 31 AQ Fhe Polar VieWisssssud sors Ss s RR a a d daa 34 4 2 4 The Single Satellite View ccccssccseccseccsscosecsuc
60. nnnnnnsnnnnnnnnnnannnnn n nnnn 49 Pid OVBIVIo VW doe bon R AA bad Soa bocce bad ea dhe ecb bod a la 49 T2 Hamlib Tutoriales si a sasd cad douse bad k os esd lav kend dave ahead Aa bin his ad Gin Bla is ts Seats 50 K A RIG GUL T datos TE vant oa vos O ons fase Spa Sow Vanes oa dda oak ou Son davon Vga ew Gals ox soon E aai 51 KZ 2 ROU ose EAA desk dstasiadusnnetasssskaskdatassdekassdslassdatassdatakunakasvaslass daki dansa dada E EEA 53 L253 Rigetld and Rotcld ssvns isd sos i r ye leno tas sb bel sa il skaka ka al Hal Hal Bi Ba obi Hala RSA ET 53 7 3 Configuring your Devices in Gpredict aiaaiaiisiasiasiasiasssnsstansnanananananananannnaananaina 54 72331 Radio Configuration 2 n Sobbokdudads adisdui sskai vs r tina Sadie Sa Brad d Hkt Seale bv a 55 7 3 2 Antenna Rotator Configuration aaaaaasaasississisassanasasiansandannsnanianananananannnnannnaia 56 7 4 Controlling your Devices with Gpredict a aaisaisaisass asisasssssnssnastastasdadandanaanaaaaa aa 57 7 4 1 The Radio Control Window aaaaaaaaaiasasasaassnasannnannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsnnnnnnnnini 57 7 4 2 The Rotator Control WindowW aaaaaaaaiasaiasaassnasannsannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsnnnnnnnnnnii 60 8 Glossary asb SS casa atone eae ae caes cece R wn mwa n R 65 List of Tables Table 3 1 Most common format Codes aaaaasisiaisassststastasiaadsatsansanadandann
61. not update the TLE files using the internet you still have the option to perform a semi automatic update using local files In order to update the TLE data from local files you can do the following 1 Acquire the fresh TLE files and store them in a directory The files must be in the NASA two line format 2 Select the Edit gt Update TLE gt Update from local files menu entry in the menu bar Gpredict will then ask you to specify a directory where the fresh TLE files are located see figure 6 2 Click the button select Other in the list of entries and find the directory where the fresh TLE files are located Click OK and you ll see the same progress dialogue as in the case of updating from the internet If you plan to update the TLE from local files often it is recommended to use a dedicated directory for that purpose Gpredict will indeed remember the last chosen directory till the next time you use this function Moreover if you for some reason are going to use multiple TLE source directories you may consider storing these directories as bookmarks in the file selector dialogue t Update TLE from files x X Cancel oP OK Figure 6 2 Selecting a directory to update the TLE data from 6 4 Manual Update This function has not been implemented yet and is currently disabled 48 Controlling Radios and Rotators 7 Controlling Radios and Rotators 7 1 Overview Beginning with version 1 0 gpredict can do D
62. o the radio s The current frequency of the radio s is not read ON OFF Doppler correction is applied but no commands are sent to the radio s and the current frequency of the radio s is not read back either ON ON Doppler correction is applied and the frequency setting commands are sent to the radio s The current frequency of the radio s is read back and is taken into account by the active feedback algorithm OFF ON Doppler correction is not performed but frequency commands are sent to the radio s and the current frequency is read back from the radio s This mode can be used for manually controlling a remote radio Table 7 2 Operating modes of the radio controller Further instructions on how to configure specific radios to be used with Gpredict may be found in the Gpredict forum http forum oz9aec net 7 4 2 The Rotator Control Window The rotator control window shown on Figure 7 5 consists five areas Azimuth Elevation Target Settings and a Polar Plot Each of these areas are described below Gpredict Rotator Control Amateur Azimuth Elevation OZ9AEC A A A A A A AA ei elo Gh dalada a S b s A v v v v v Read 35 77 Read 40 61 Target Settings Device TESTROT A v Az 31 74 El 40 61 AT 09 43 Tolerance Cycle Figure 7 5 The rotator control interface 60 Controlling Radios and Rotators Azimuth A v A A R vw Read 35 77
63. ok as a new page A key feature in gpredict is that you are allowed to use several modules at the same time There is no limit on the number of open modules except the processing power and available memory of your computer It is also up to you how many modules should be docked in the notebook and how many should be in their own window Needless to say only one module can be in full screen state at the same time The last two menu items in the pop up menu Delete and Close do exactly what they promise If you select Delete the module will be closed immediately and you will be prompted to confirm the deletion This is your last chance before the module is completely removed from the disk A module can also be closed by clicking on the X icon in the top right corner 2 3 Configuring the Module If you have followed the cloning instructions in the previous section you now have two copies of the same module Lets modify one of them so that they are not exactly identical Gpredict offers you the possibility to configure each module independently of the others This is not a requirement it is an option It is up to you whether you want to use the global defaults or whether you want to customise each module to suit your needs and this applies to all parameters To configure a module select the Configure menu item in the module pop up menu This will bring up a small dialogue window showing the module name the name of the ground station and wh
64. ollowing definitions exist for twilight Civil twilight 0 to 6 Nautical twilight 6 to 12 Astronomical twilight 12 to 18 For most uses the civil darkness will be adequate Always use real time for pass predictions If you check this option Gpredict will always use the current system time as starting point for future pass predictions even when you are running in simulation mode If you leave the box unchecked Gpredict will take the time from the time controller to predict future passes from 5 1 2 Multiple Passes The check boxes on this page allows you to select what data gpredict should show when listing multiple passes You can choose between e Acquisition of signal AOS the time when the satellite comes within range e Time of closest approach TCA the time when the elevation of the 40 Advanced Pass Predictions satellite is at maximum during the pass e Loss of signal LOS the time when the satellite goes out of range again e Duration of the pass e Maximum elevation during the pass e The satellite Azimuth when it comes within range e The satellite Azimuth at the time of closest approach e The azimuth when the satellite goes out of range e The orbit during which the pass will occur e The visibility of the satellite during the pass Note that the visibility can change during the pass This field will show a combination of three letters each of them indicating a visibility
65. onnect to you ICOM IC 910 connected to the first USB port using the default settings for serial speed CIV address etc The command line arguments also have a short version consisting of a single letter Using the short version the above command would be 51 Gpredict User Manual rigctl m 334 r dev ttyUSBO You can mix the short and long versions as you whish By default hamlib sets the DTR and RTS lines of the RS232 interface high If you have an adaptor that uses these lines for special purposes such as CW and PTT you will need to disable the lines using the set conf option rigctl model 334 set conf dtr state OFF rts state OFF There are many other configuration options that can be modified using the set conf command line argument To get a complete list of the configuration options simply type rigctl L Another very useful option is the v parameter which specifies verbosity level of the debug messages that are printed by rigctl The more v s you include the higher the verbosity of the output messages The highest number is 5 corresponding to vvvvv which will print as much as possible in most cases even the RS232 traffic This is very useful for debugging bogus drivers Table 7 1 below lists some of the most common command line options for rigctl For a complete reference you should consult the rigctl manual page i e man rigctl Command Description m ID model ID S
66. oppler tuning of radios and tracking of antenna rotators via Hamlib see http hamlib sourceforge net This is done via hamlib s rigctld and rotctld TCP IP interface and requires that hamlib version 1 2 8 or later is installed on the computer to which your radio and or rotator device is connected Since this interface uses an internet protocol you can either have gpredict control devices connected to the same computer or you can control devices connected to a remote computer Gpredict is very flexible when it comes to controlling radios You can use both receivers transmitters and transceivers You can even use two separate radios for uplink and downlink The rest of this chapter will guide you through setting up gpredict and hamlib to perform radio and rotator control You should read this chapter carefully if you plan to use gpredict for these tasks If you have difficulties understanding this section or you miss some information feel free to seek support on the gpredict forum at http forum oz9aec net Before you set up gpredict to control your hardware devices it is very important to ensure that the hamlib interface works properly with your devices Many low level drivers in hamlib have been written from specs and might not have been tested with real hardware at all You could be the first person to actually test a particular driver with real hardware Connecting gpredict to a hardware device without knowing that the hamlib
67. pecify the model ID of your radio See rigctl list for a complete list of supported radios or on the web http hamlib sourceforge net support html r dev rig file dev The file name of the device where your radio is connected Serial ports usually have file names dev ttyS0 dev ttyS1 etc while USB adapter including USB to RS232 converters usually have device names dev ttyUSBO dev ttyUSB1 and so on s baud serial speed baud Use baud for serial speed By default hamlib uses the highest rate the specified radio is known to support however often this setting will be specific to what the radio has been configured to and should therefore always be specified c CIV civaddr CIV Sets the CI V address for ICOM radios If not specified hamlib will use the factory default CI V address of the specific model You only need to use this option if the CI V address of your ICOM radio is different from the factory default You can specify the address using both decimal notation and HEX in the latter case the address must be prefixed with 0x 52 Controlling Radios and Rotators Command Description L show conf List all the configuration parameters that are available for the radio C set conf par val Set configuration parameters Use L to get a list of configuration parameters Normally you will use this if you need to set DTR and RTS OFF and to configure parameters of the seria
68. r per module at any given time If you have more than one module open you can have one radio and one rotator interface open for each module Thus if your task is to monitor two different transponders of the same satellite using two different radios you simply need two modules having the same satellite You can access the radio and antenna rotator control windows via the module popup menu see Figure 2 3 7 4 1 The Radio Control Window The radio control window shown on Figure 7 4 consists of four areas Satellite Radio Target and Device Each of these are described below Gpredict Radio Control Amateur Downlink Uplink a AAA a h A A A A aaa a AA 145 900 000 Hz 435 250 000 Hz pe ah h MO A es SM eM a Pr VV FFS Doppler 1987 Hz LO 0 MHz Doppler 5928 Hz LO 407 MHz Radio 145 898 013 Hz Radio 28 244 072 Hz Target Settings VO 52 v Track 1 Device FT 817 1 v Engage Dutch U V Lin has LE L 2 Device IC 765 TX v Az 272 24 Range 10554 km El 50 03 Rate 4 083 km s Cycle 1000 msec AOS in 01 03 47 Figure 7 4 The radio control interface 57 Gpredict User Manual Downlink a AAA 145 900 000 Hz TP R n a es ee A h A h Doppler 1987 Hz LO 0 MHz The Downlink area contains the control and status widgets for the satellite downlink frequency Besides the downlink frequency it also shows the Doppler shift at the current downlink frequency
69. r view You can pick a colour using a colour selector by clicking on the button that show the coloured rectangle Note that the colours are specified using their red green and blue components and an additional alpha channel The alpha channel determines the transparency of the colour The higher the value the less transparent is the colour Colours with an alpha value of 0 will be completely transparent that is invisible Colours which are very transparent may not be clearly visible on the colour picker button as is the case for the default Axes Circles colour Following colours can be set o Background The background colour o Axes Circles This colour is used to draw the azimuth axes and the elevation circles o Tick Labels The colour used for the tick label e g N W S and E o Satellite The colour of the satellites and their labels o Selected Sat The colour of the selected satellite and its label o Sky Track The colour used to draw the sky track of a satellite o Info Text The colour used for the additional information e g Next Event e Miscellaneous o Show the sky tracks automatically If you enable this check box the polar view will display the sky tracks for satellites as soon as they come in range This means that you don t have to right click then select sky Track for each satellite You can still hide the sky tracks manually There is no support to Save Load colour schemes nor is there any possibility to p
70. review you changes Should you end up with a bad colour scheme you can always reset the settings to either the global defaults or the built in factory settings You can do that using the Reset button located at the bottom of the page 4 2 4 The Single Satellite View The single satellite view is a simple table showing details of one satellite at a time Figure 4 5 shows a screen capture of the single satellite view Of course you can pick any satellite that is associated to the parent module via the Select Satellite menu item in the single satellite pop up menu You can access the pop up menu by clicking on the small V icon located on the left side of the satellite name The single satellite view is practically a miniature version of the list view it can display the same data as the list view but for only one satellite at a time Moreover the single satellite view displays the data vertically and is well suited to be placed in the small rectangular container areas of those layouts which can contain three views 37 Gpredict User Manual Cc x 2006 08 14 20 00 38 D Azimuth Elevation Direction Slant Range Range Rate Next Event SSP Loc Footprint Altitude Velocity Doppler Sig Loss Sig Delay Mean Anom Orbit Phase Orbit Num Visibility SE ela 32 02 Receeding 7384 km 5 721 km sec AOS 2006 08 14 21 12 56 PM18HU 4081 km 341 km 7 711 km sec 1908 Hz 149 77 dB
71. rt the server should use The default port is 4532 for rigctld and 4533 for rotctld and you don t need to change that unless those ports are already in use e g by another rigctld or rotctld server In order to start a radio or antenna rotator server you simply start rigtctld or rotctld with the same command line arguments as you used for rigctl and rotctl 53 Gpredict User Manual 7 3 Configuring your Devices in Gpredict Now that you have tested hamlib with your radio and antenna rotator we are ready to move on and configure gpredict To enter the radio and antenna rotator settings in gpredict select Edit gt Preferences in the menu bar and click on the Interfaces button in the left part of the dialogue You should see something that looks like the dialogue shown on Figure 7 1 below The main view of the dialogue will show the list of already configured radios which is initially empty At the bottom you will find three buttons for adding editing and deleting your radio configurations GPREDICT Preferences Interfaces SS Radios Rotators Config Name Host Port Rig Type PTT Status VFO Up VFO Down LO Down LO Up enera IC765 TRX localhost 4533 RX TX DCD 116 MHz 407 MHz test rx localhost 4532 RX only None OMHz 0 MHz test tx localhost 4533 TX only None OMHz OMHz Modules FT817 RX localhost 4532 RX only PTT OMHz OMHz ine IC 910 localhost 4532 Duplex None Main Sub 0 MHz 0 MHz Interfaces
72. s Predict Cancel wok Figure 3 1 The preferences dialogue The global preferences are divided into four major groups 1 General This group contains global parameters that influence the overall behaviour of the application for example the way numbers are displayed 2 Modules The parameters in this group define the default settings and properties for the modules This includes the module layout refresh rates and settings for the available views map list polar and single sat The parameters are described in details in chapter 4 where a thorough description of the functionality of the modules is given 3 Interfaces Settings for automating radio and antenna rotator control The set up and use of this feature is described in details in chapter 7 4 Predict Parameters that define the functional and visual behaviour of the future pass prediction functions These are described in chapter 5 The rest of this chapter describes the parameters in the General group page by page You can freely experiment with the configuration parameters without worrying too much about messing up your settings Gpredict offers you a Reset to Default function for most parameters This function can be accessed via the Reset button available everywhere in the configuration 22 Customising Gpredict dialogue 3 2 Number Formats These settings determine how numbers are displayed in gpredict They can be accessed from the
73. state V visible D daylight E eclipsed GPREDICT Preferences Predict Pass Conditions Multiple Passes Single Pass Sky at a Glance Visible Columns Time of Closest Approach TCA Loss of signal LOS Duration of pass Maximum elevation Azimuth at AOS Az at max elevation Azimuth at LOS Interfaces Orbit number Visibility during pass Predict Cancel OK Figure 5 2 Configuration options for multiple pass predictions 41 Gpredict User Manual 5 1 3 Single Pass GPREDICT Preferences Predict Pass Conditions Multiple Passes Single Pass Sky at a Glance General Visible Columns Azimuth Elevation C Right Ascension C Declination Slant Range Range Rate Latitude C Longitude Sub Satellite Point Footprint _ Altitude Interfaces Velocity Doppler Shift 100MHz _ Signal Loss 100MHz Signal Delay C Mean Anomaly Orbit Phase Predict Visibility Figure 5 3 Configuration options for single pass predictions The check boxes on this page allows you to select which data fields gpredict should include when showing details about a pass The choices are pretty much the same as for the list view and the single satellite view 5 2 Sky at a Glance 42 Advanced Pass Predictions The sky at a glance Amateur Figure 5 4 The sky at a glance The sky at a glance window gives you a quick overview of upcoming satellite passes for all satellites of
74. t these two requirements contradict one another nevertheless they have been the key drivers during the design and development of gpredict Consequently gpredict has two customisation levels 1 The Global Settings define the behaviour of gpredict as a whole and also provide default values for the modules These settings can be accessed from the main menu bar via the Edit gt Preferences menu item 2 Module Level These settings allow the user to customise each module independently of the others They are accessed via the pop up menu of each module Configure gt Properties The preferences dialogue for editing the global settings is shown on figure 3 1 If you compare it with the module properties editor you saw in the previous chapter you will notice that the module properties dialogue is simply a subset of the global preferences dialogue In other words the global configuration dialogue contains the module properties dialogue and the settings in the global preferences dialogue provide the default values for modules where there are no specific user settings 21 Gpredict User Manual gt GPREDIGT Preferences General o x Number Formats Ground Stations TLE Update Message Logs General Show local time instead of UTC Time format Y 9 m d H M S 2009 10 01 13 48 54 Reset Modules Use N S E W for geographical coordinates H C Use Imperial units instead of Metric Interface
75. t shows the next pass of the currently selected target satellite The small rectangle represents the currently E selected target satellite if it is within range The circle around the rectangle represents the current position of the controller while the cross represents the current position of the rotator device if engaged 5 If the rectangle the circle and the cross are all aligned you are successfully tracking the target satellite When you open the rotator control window tracking will be disabled and the rotator device disengaged Select the appropriate device and engage You can now control the rotator manually using the Azimuth and Elevation control widgets You should be able to see the red circle and the cross move around the polar plot according to your settings and the current position of the rotator When you want to start tracking a target satellite you simply enable the Track button Note that when tracking is enabled any manual position changes will be overridden by the position of the currently selected target Note however that active tracking will be carried out only if the target satellite is within range If tracking is enabled while the target satellite is out of range the rotator controller widgets will be set to the position where the target satellite is expected to appear at the next AOS The Cycle and Tolerance parameters can be changed at any time regardless of whether the rotator device is e
76. to 1 second second real time a value of 2 corresponds to 2 seconds second simulated real time etc The Pause button between the two arrow buttons stops automatic increment of time and you can set the module time using the date and time controls in the window The Reset button will reset the time to the current time provided by the operating system The Radio Control and Antenna Control menu items bring up the radio and antenna rotator controller windows Setting up gpredict to perform Doppler tuning of radios and antenna rotator tracking is described in details in chapter 7 The Configure item allows you to customise the module This function is described in the next section 11 Gpredict User Manual The Clone menu item is a convenience function to create an exact copy of a module If you select it a small dialogue window pops up asking you to enter a name for the new module Enter an appropriate name Note that only standard ASCII characters consisting of 0 9 a z A Z hyphen and underscore _ are allowed This is because the name of the module is also used for naming the data file in which the configuration will be stored If you clear the check box asking whether to open the module the new module will be created and that s it If you leave the check box checked the new module will be opened right after it is created Leave the check box checked and press OK You should see your new module appear in the notebo
77. to draw grid on the map o Tick Labels The colour used for the tick labels on the grid o Satellite The colour of the satellites their labels and footprint circles o Selected Sat The colour of the selected satellite its label and its footprint circle o Ground Track The colour used to draw the ground track of a satellite o Coverage Area This colour is used to highlight the area covered by the footprint of the satellite It is strongly suggested to make this colour very transparent o Info Text FG The foreground colour used for the additional information e g Next Event o Info Text BG The background colour used for the additional information e Display ground track for __ orbit s This setting specifies for how many orbits the ground track of a satellite should be displayed The default value is 1 and you can choose any value between 1 and 10 4 2 3 The Polar View The polar view also called radar view shows the satellites within range on a polar graph The polar axis represents the azimuth of the satellites starting at North and turning towards East while the radial axis represents to the elevation of the satellites with 90 at the centre corresponding to looking straight up in the sky Thus the polar view is a projection of the sky as seen from the ground station with the centre of the graph corresponding to looking straight overhead Figure 4 3 shows a screen capture of the polar view in gpredict as it looks
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79. very important option if you want to use the same radio for both RX and TX regardless of whether the radio type is RX only TX only or Simplex TRX If your radio support reading the PTT status via CAT select the Read PTT option If you have a radio that could be used as Simplex TRX but it does not support reading PTT status via CAT you might be able to use the Read DCD option This requires that your radio outputs some signal that indicates the PTT status most transceivers do that and that you use a special CAT interface that can route this signal to either CTS or DSR and configure rigctld to use these signals for DCD rigctl model 334 d dev ttyUSBO dcd type CTS The PTT Status option has no effect for full duplex radios VFO Up Down If you are using Gpredict to control a full duplex capable radio such as the IC 910H or FT 847 you need to tell Gpredict which VFO to use for up and downlink This setting is different from radio to radio and you should consult the operation manual of your radio for the correct setting Also note that you will have to set your radio into full duplex mode before letting Gpredict control it This setting is only used for full duplex radios and has no effect if the radio is receiver transmitter or simplex transceiver LO Down and Up These options allow you specify an offset local oscillator frequency if you use a transverter with your radio For example if you are using a downlink
80. when the controller algorithm detects 5 subsequent errors in the communication with hamlib the device will be automatically disengaged AOS in 01 03 47 In the bottom of the window you will find a counter counting the time left until next AOS or LOS event The format is HH MM SS Assuming that you have tested and configured your radios properly all you need to do to start tracking a satellite with your radio is 1 Select the satellite in the Target box 2 Select the transponder you want to track 3 Enable the Track button You should now see the Radio frequency being corrected for Doppler shift with respect to the Satellite frequency 4 Select the proper radio device s in the Settings area 5 Enable the Engage button You can at any time disable the Doppler correction by disabling the Track button regardless of whether the radio device is engaged or not Similarly engaging and disengaging the device can be done at any time Note that if gpredict detects too many communication errors with hamlib it will automatically disengage the device s Note that when tracking is enabled Doppler correction will be applied regardless of whether the satellite is within range or not An overview of the operating modes of the radio controller algorithm is 59 Gpredict User Manual given in Table 7 3 below Track Engage Description OFF OFF No Doppler correction is performed No commands are sent t
81. where after the user can initiate an update as described earlier in this section The other possibility is to let gpredict perform a fully automatic update in the background without any notification to the user not even in case of error If you choose to use this option you should keep an eye once in a while on whether the updates are actually performed or not You can do that either by checking the satellite info dialogue or by examining the log messages produced by gpredict Please note that both the notification mechanism and the autonomous silent update are relatively new functions in gpredict Consequently they are far from perfect and are most likely to undergo improvements in future versions of gpredict Your comments and suggestions will be highly appreciated 6 2 2 Update from the Internet In order to perform automatic or semi automatic TLE updates from the internet gpredict needs to know what files to fetch and from where By default gpredict is configured to download all of the interesting data from CelesTrak but you may want to perform the updates from somewhere else or using other files There are three parameters that are relevant here 1 Remote server This specifies the complete remote URL consisting of the network protocol HTTP FTP etc the server name as well as the directory on the server where the files are located 2 Proxy server If you are behind a proxy server you can enter the name or address of th
82. x file name of the device where your radio rotator is connected to Serial devices are usually called dev ttySO dev ttyS1 and so on USB devices including USB to serial adaptors appear as dev ttyUSBO dev ttyUSB1 etc Serial Speed This is usually set in your radio and although hamlib provides some default values it is safest to specify it when you load the driver CIV Address For ICOM radios you will need to know the CIV address if it has been changed from the default CIV address If your ICOM radio uses the factory default settings you do not need to tell hamlib what CIV to use DTR and CTS Some special interfaces e g Microham USB I F use the DTR settings and CTS lines for specific purposes such as PTT and CW keying Hamlib sets these lines ON by default and you might need to disable it explicitly Hamlib provides a driver for a fictive radio and rotator i called dummy This driver has model number 1 and you can use this driver while you learn to use the command line utilities It is also recommended to use this driver while you get used to the controller user interface in Gpredict 7 2 1 Rigctl Rigctl is an interactive command line tool for sending command to and reading status from your radio When you invoke rigctl you need to tell it which radio you want to control and how to connect to it For example the command line rigctl model 344 rig file dev ttyUSBO will c
83. youts that allow you to have one two or three different views in a module at the same time see figure 2 2 Figure 2 2 The four different layouts in gpredict If you look closely at figure 2 1 you will notice that there are small handles between the views These handles are used to change the space distribution between two views in a layout Initially gpredict tries to distribute the space between two views automatically but this distribution can always be changed at run time Section 2 3 3 will give you a more detailed description of the available layouts and views 2 2 The Module Pop Up Menu Each module has its own pop up menu which can be accessed by clicking on the V icon in the top right corner of the module This pop up menu gives 1 A handle may not always be visible Whether the handle is visible depends on the desktop theme you are using In any case you can always grab and drag the space between two different views to change the size allocations 10 Getting Started with Gpredict you quick access to the functions that are relevant for a module A screen shot of the pop up menu is shown on figure 2 3 The first two items in this pop up menu are used to f Detach module change the display state of the module A module can be in three different states e Docked In this default state the module is Sky ata glance docked into the notebook in the main window Time Controller G Fullscreen e Window

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