Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

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oh8fks
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Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by oh8fks »

Since v1 there have been some changes in the way satellite names are stored and unfortunately they didn’t go in the right direction.

I'm using here below two satellites as examples: AO-7 and XW-2A.

In v1 satellites were stored as AO-7|AMSAT-OSCAR 7 and XW-2A|CAS3-2A and showed in the drop-down list in the same way.

In v2 satellites are stored as AMSAT-OSCAR 7;AO-7 and CAS3-2A;XW-2A and in the drop-down list they are shown as AMSAT-OSCAR 7 and CAS3-2A, that is only the part before the semicolon.

Apart from the fact that the window length is too short, making many sat names almost unreadable, having the full name shown doesn’t really help anybody.

The way sats are stored in adif is anyway in their short version, which is the official denomination used by AMSAT, LOtW and so forth, that is AO-7, XW-2A and so forth.

That should be also the way to show them in the drop-down list. As a matter of fact, their long (original) name could be completely removed.

Now for example you have to choose CAS3-2A from the drop-down list to store a QSO made on XW-2A. It is the same satellite, XW-2A is the official AMSAT denomination, which now is not shown at all on the drop-down list, although it is saved properly in the log.

I understand that anybody can change the satellites.csv file to her/his liking, however at each update you will have it overwritten and you have to change it again.

My suggestion: get rid of the long version of the satellite names and use only the list of the official AMSAT names, which are anyway the ones stored in the ADIF file. That is, just list them as AO-7 and XW-2A.

Even better, if you finally want to have the centre frequencies and modes chosen automatically when selecting a satellite, you can use the following pattern:

AO-7;145950;432150;USB;LSB;U/v
AO-7;29450;145900;USB;USB;V/a

That is in the form:
SatName;DownlinkFreq;UplinkFreq;DownlinkMode;UplinkMode;SatMode

And the dropdown list should show only the first and last field, e.g.:
AO-7;U/v
AO-7;V/a

In this way you can easily choose a satellite and its sat mode, which defines also the freqs and modes for uplink and downlink. Some satellites will be shown twice in case they have multiple transponder modes (like AO-7 and AO-92).

The full updated list can be found here: http://amsat.org/amsat/ftp/keps/current/nasa.all

The list doesn’t contain old satellites but they can be always added manually in the file or directly in the window.

There are already logging softwares which have this capability, such as Cloudlog, but I'd personally like to keep using log4om.

If you need help in creating the list of all satellites, I’d be very happy to help.
Last edited by oh8fks on 28 Jun 2020, 18:27, edited 1 time in total.
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G4POP
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by G4POP »

There are already logging software which have this capability, such as Cloudlog, but I'd personally like to keep using log4om.

Wow! £48.00 per year!

I have referred this to Lele and no doubt he will contact you for advice should he need to
73 Terry G4POP
oh8fks
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by oh8fks »

G4POP wrote: 28 Jun 2020, 10:42
There are already logging software which have this capability, such as Cloudlog, but I'd personally like to keep using log4om.

Wow! £48.00 per year!

I have referred this to Lele and no doubt he will contact you for advice should he need to
Cloudlog is free and open source, you can install it on your server for free and the code is freely available on github. The price you mention is a yearly subscription in case you want the database to be hosted and handled on their servers.
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IW3HMH
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by IW3HMH »

If you can provide me a list of valid sats with those columns it would be great.
Please use this format if possible:

Displayed name
ADIF value
Tx freq in khz
Rx freq in khz
mode TX
mode RX

Separated by ;

So name should be "AO-7 U/v" or similar

Btw in Log4OM I don't have possibility to save different modes in tx/rx so I cannot save uplink fm downlink usb... I will use tx one but It's this a real case? Are those modes used in some application? It's the sat mode?
Daniele Pistollato - IW3HMH
oh8fks
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by oh8fks »

Hi Daniele

Please find a .txt file attached to this message. Since Log4OM doesn't have separate modes for tx/rx, I created the table (semicolon separated) as follows:

Displayed name
ADIF value
Tx freq in kHz
Rx freq in kHz
Mode

So, there is only one "Mode" field. Actually common satellites work either in FM (both uplink and downlink) or SSB/CW (LSB uplink, USB downlink, with some exceptions). So I put in the Mode field either FM or SSB. For CW users, they will have to change the mode manually. And in general it's quite common to mark the mode as SSB without specifying uplink and downlink separately, so no problem if the software doesn't allow different fields.
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Satellites for Log4OM_20200628.txt
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oh8fks
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by oh8fks »

Forgot to answer:
IW3HMH wrote: 28 Jun 2020, 14:08 [...] Are those modes used in some application? It's the sat mode?
Yes, it's is the sat mode. However I think nobody bothers filling it as it is not requested by e.g. LoTW. Afterall TX and RX freqs define the satellite mode. However if needed I can create a new column with the sat mode listed per satellite.
oh8fks
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by oh8fks »

Any news from the developers about this feature?
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G4POP
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by G4POP »

Not until there is more demand
73 Terry G4POP
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Re: Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields

Post by DK9JC »

G4POP wrote: 21 Nov 2020, 16:03 Not until there is more demand
Please, there is more demand. :-)
73 de John, DK9JC (AK9JC stateside)
https://www.dk9jc.de
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