Tracking Satellites: The Nitty Gritty Details

If you want to listen to satellites, you have to be able to track them as they pass over the sky. When I first started tracking amateur satellites, computing the satellite’s location in the sky was a part of the challenge. Nowadays, that’s trivial. What’s left over are all the …read more

Continue reading Tracking Satellites: The Nitty Gritty Details

Tracking Satellites with a Commodore PET

A recent writeup by Tom Nardi about using the 6502-based NES to track satellites brought back memories of my senior project at Georgia Tech back in the early 80s.  At our club station W4AQL, I had become interested in Amateur Radio satellites.  It was quite a thrill to hear your …read more

Continue reading Tracking Satellites with a Commodore PET

Retrotechtacular: The OSCAR 7 Satellite Died and was Reborn 20 Years Later

If I were to ask you what is the oldest man-made orbiting satellite still in use, I’d expect to hear a variety of answers. Space geeks might mention the passive radar calibration spheres, or possibly one of the early weather satellites. But what about the oldest communication satellite still in …read more

Continue reading Retrotechtacular: The OSCAR 7 Satellite Died and was Reborn 20 Years Later