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Welcome to the new home of the AO-27 Satellite Schedule Lister.
January 10, 2010: Version 1.2 released!
I was looking for a way to track the current operational mode of AO-27, without having to have an active internet connection or carry a printout of the schedule for the day. I also wanted something that would allow me to see the schedule for future dates, something that can’t be done with the schedule on the AO-27 website. Fortunately, Michael Wyrick, the author of the listing program used on the AO-27 site, was kind enough to make the C++ source code for his lister available. My son Christopher, who was studying computer science at the Rochester Institute of Technology at the time, took Mike’s source code and wrote a Java version of the lister, with a nice graphical user interface. It is available for download here, at no charge.
The original version was a "one-shot": the "Schedule Time" and "Time Remaining" showed the values at the time the program was launched, and had to be refreshed by toggling between the Schedule and List tabs. Version 1.1 refreshed these values every 10 seconds, automatically. It also corrected a typo in the list of AO-27 frequencies in the scroll box on the Schedule tab. Version 1.2 updates the schedule every 5 seconds, and corrects the URL used to download the required data files from the AO-27 website.
 The Java version should run on any platform with the Java Runtime environment installed (version 1.4 or higher). The Windows .EXE version also requires that the Java Runtime environment be installed. Both versions include old copies of the required TOPR.TXT and EPOCH.TXT files to get you up and running, but you should update those files the first time you run the program. Simply click File, then Update, or hit Ctrl-U. (updating of the data files is the only time that an active internet connection is required, or you can manually copy the files from a flash drive or floppy disk to the folder where you unzipped the archive, if desired.)
Enjoy!!!
George, KA3HSW
Click here to download the Java version.
Click here to download the Windows EXE version. |
8/27/2011 The AO-27 web site has been down for at least a week now, and therefore, you cannot update the scheduler data files from within the program. I have added the latest available data files (May 28,2011) to the files list above. Just drop them into whatever folder you installed the program to.
I Have asked Mike Wyrick of the AO-27 control team to let me know if a new schedule is uploaded to the satellite before the website is back up. If so, I will post the new data files here.
I have uploaded the latest TOPR and EPOCH files, effective 12/3/2011. Mike hopes to have the AO-27 site back up soon.
There was an apparent typo in the Topr.txt file as I received it from the AO-27 control team: the second line, which defines the transponder "on" period, reads "240", which is only 4 minutes. The correct "on" period is 7 minutes, or a value of 420. You may edit the file yourself using Notepad, or download the corrected version above.