[Gpredict-discussion] New Feature Request (And new subscriber :)

[mudhwk <mu...@gm...>]

  HI Folks,

  Thanks for adding me to the list.

  I am a new "serious" gpredict user, after having poked around with it on
occasion for a couple of years casually.

  By way of background,  back in the 90's (Before hamlib),  I wrote an
FT-736r control program called FT-7361,  along with a tracking antenna
program called prrietrk.  It wasn't pretty,  but it did a lot of convenient
stuff reasonably well.

  When used in conjunction with Wisps' EasyComm interface,  it automated
all aspects of pacsat operation, while allowing me to automatically
schedule flipping tover to the local repeater at commuter hour, and
pointing my beam at whatever repeater I might use etc.

I happily wore out several rotators using this automation 24x7 for a
while,  then got away from it.

I'm recently back, and on a whim dragged FT-7361 kicking and screaming from
its Windows 3.1 origins to mostly running on my windows 7 desktop as an
easy way to get on the FM satellites.   For antennas, I've built a switched
array of small yagis computer controlled via a modified Ameritron RCS-10
antenna switch.  The antenna array is not super high performance but is
adequate for FM sats, and has no moving parts to wear out.

  This morning I threw together a python hack to impersonate rotorctl  and
was delighted to see gpredict seamlessly drive my antennas!

  Reliably controlling the FT-736r is more troublesome via hamlib,  and
although I'm still on the learning curve,  I can see some limitations that
I'd like to avoid.

Given the limitations of the FT-736 cat interface, something a bit more
tailored to the radio's quirks is probably necessary,  hence my desire to
resurrect FT-7361 as the "master of ceremonies" that drives the radio and
chooses what to track etc  (In particular FT-7361 can manage a Mode B <->
Mode J band swap if a third band module is present, which is hugely
helpful. )

  Sorry for this being so long, but I wanted to explain the use case a bit
before  getting to the  point:

  Would it be possible in terms of a new feature request to ask for
Gpredict to include a "wsjt-x style"   UDP Broadcast facility that would
broadcast an Easycomm protocol string with the currently tracked  satellite
name,  az/el/uplink/downlink frequencies and modes as well as the scaled
doppler value?

  With this,  I could directly tie FT-7361 directly to gpredict,  and
bypass hamlib altogether.   It's not a solution for the masses, to be
sure,  but I think that in addition to myself, this would be very
beneficial to a lot of the other homebrewers.   Hamlib is REALLY COOL for
commercial  equipment,  but it doesn't lend itself real well to off the
wall homebuilt setups may have different communications needs.

  Thanks for any consideration (and for a cool linux based tracking
program! :) )

 --al
WB1BQE