Introduction - Acknowledgment
In addition to Tom Clark's major impetus through his Orbit
article, I'd like to acknowledge having looked at or read some of the many
software and documentation offerings provided by Tom Kelso on the Celestial BBS
(via archive.afit.af.mil), and more recently by KB5MU on the AMSAT BBS (via
ftp.amsat.org). These include offerings said to be based on work by G3RUH,
James Miller, and by DL4ZC, Karl Meinzer, both well-known contributors to the
Amateur Satellite program.
The SGP/SGP4 code was adapted with permission from the FORTRAN listings
published by Tom Kelso in the Project SpaceTrack documentation.
Christie Harper, KD4QIO, author of the "Simple Tracking Program" emailed me
some useful advice on calculation of AOS and LOS.
James Miller, G3RUH, published a nice program (114BASIC.TXT, available from the
AMSAT bbs) in connection with his article in the Amsat Journal, May/June 1995,
"The Re-entry of OSCAR-13", from which I borrowed some principles for
vector-to-keplerian conversions.
See the
Bibliography
for other articles whose content influenced this program.
Thanks to the many users who have given bug reports, suggestions, or other
feedback - every message is appreciated. Helpful bug reports and suggestions
were received from (in no particular order) Stacey Mills, WB4OKT; Jack Colson,
W3TMZ; Jean-Luc Barraud, F1JEK; Joshua Powers; Vince, KD7AI; Ken Waters, N4BPY,
and Kory Hamzeh, KE6VWO. Special thanks to Fabio Leite; Hans-S. Klausmann,
DL5RAZ; and Richard Provencal, VE2OTT, for their assistance in debugging
problems with European date and number formats. Attempts at debugging the
persistent problem with 32k and 64k-color graphics drivers were made by Dennis
Caton, KF0JT; Paul Williamson, KB5MU; Peter Noeth; Edgar, VE2EHP; and Perry
Ogletree, N0NMC. Unfortunately, we haven't licked this one yet.
Jean-Philippe Donnio suggested the inclusion of external hypertext information
files, such as his "Satellite Encyclopedia".
Alan Raichel, N3IKI has tested much of the code for the (separate) hardware
interface program.
Kep files have been obtained from the N9LNQ PBBS in Champaign, IL.
My wife has also supported this project by her encouragement of my "hobby
time".
Converted by Winhelp to Web