Hi Listers,

As some of you know I am active with the amateur satellites.

I have been using an old but very good dos program for tracking and antenna
pointing.  The program is QuikTrak by N4HY.  I have been using it
successfully since the early 90s.  This software has been used with the
Kansas City Tracker card.  The KCT interfaces with my Yaesu as/el rotator.

Everything has been working well till the KCT card gave up the ghost.  The
Kansas City tracker is no longer manufactured and can't be repaired.  None
of the currently produced rotator interfaces work with the old dos legacy
software.  Till now none of the currently available Windows tracking
packages are speech-friendly.

This situation changed when I started playing around with Ham Radio Deluxe
and it's satellite tracking package.  The program is speech-friendly to the
extent that I can run it, track individual satellites, read the position of
the birds during a pass and even get audible announcements at the start and
end of passes as well as other cues.

Since HRD is currently being produced it works with lots of the currently
available antenna interfaces.

I can't speak to the accessibility of the rest of the package but it works
well enough with speech to say that anyone who may be interested in
satellite operating may want to give HRD a try.

I have E-Mailed the Author Simon HB9DRV and perhaps a dialogue can be
started regarding even more accessibility.  I am waiting his reply.

I just wanted to put this out on the list for anyone who may be interested
in satellite work who requires a speech-friendly tracking solution.


Dave Marthouse N2AAM
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