There are two dos programs that I have used to track 
satellites and control antennas in as/el since 1991.  They are QuikTrak by 
N4HY and Instantrack.  You can get them from the amsat store at 
www.amsat.org.  They will run under dos on windows xp.

If you want to use such software to control antennas you must have a 
computer that can handle the old style isa slots.  That's the old long 
cards.  There is a device called the Kansas city tracker or the KCT that 
slips into the isa slot that is than connected to an as/el rotor.  The bad 
thing about this arrangement is that the KCT is no longer made and the 
company that made it is out of business.  There are other methods of 
controlling antennas but they won't work with these old dos packages.

The current generation of windows software is extremely graphical and I 
haven't had much luck in running them efficiently with speech.  There is a 
program in the current generation of windows software that may have 
potential.  It's pcsat32.  You can get a demo through the amsat site 
mentioned above.

Eventually my old dos box that I use for rotor control is going to give up 
the ghost.  It's 13 years old.  To ad to this I am having a problem with my 
KCT card.  So push is coming to shove on the issue of accessible sat 
tracking systems.  Maybe a talented jfw scripter can iron out the 
accessibility issues with pcsat32.

In the mean time you can get QuikTrak or InstanTrack to work under dos in 
xp.  You can at least get aos and los times as well as positional 
information on the birds.  As far as antenna control you will have to 
scrounge up an old box with isa slots and a KCT board.  Both of these things 
are becoming rarer by the day.

It would be sad to see satellite operations with speech become out of reach 
do to this accessibility issue.

I hope this backgrounder on the topic helps.

Dave Marthouse N2AAM
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Fiorello" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:37 PM
Subject: satolite info


> Hello everyone;
> Our radio club had a so-called youth night Tuesday evening.  Folks =
> including myself brought things to display.  I didn't bring much =
> exciting but showed the kids a few talking items.  The guy next to me =
> was very into satellites.  Way back when when I was more into the hobby =
> I thought most satellites input on 10 meters and output on 440.  From =
> what I heard last night they seem to just be using 2 meters and 440.  Is =
> this the case?  Are they still using ssb or have we moved on to fm?
> The guy had a radio connected to an antenna on his car and couldn't hear =
> anything.  That didn't matter though since the kids were fascinated with =
> the program on his laptop which apparently showed a map and circles =
> moving across the map for the various satellites.  I have the feeling =
> that it wouldn't think about working with speech.  Are there any similar =
> tracking programs that do work well with speech?
> Secondly, anyone care to describe what this egg beater antenna looks =
> like which he said worked wonderfully for satellite work?
> The guy on the other side of me tried explaining third party traffic and =
> he had these little forms which the kids could fill out (one word per =
> square) for a message.  Is there a template that lets someone do =
> something similar on a pc?
> Unfortunately, I think the kids were a bit to young and the only thing =
> that seemed to excite them were the satellite maps and aprs.
> Richard
>
>