Satellite denominations in the drop-down list and automatic update of freq and mode fields
Posted: 28 Jun 2020, 10:01
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.
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.