On a side-note, I figured I would offer-up a short, technical side-note for anyone that is interested. I would like to address two common issues that people run into:
a) obtaining the latest amateur radio keps from spacetrack (without having to explicitly log into the website) b) host your own keps on a local server, so you do not have to be dependent on third party websites for keps (maybe you're out in the field?) Both of these can be accomplished very easily using the Python snippet below. For the record, this code is a rapid prototype that does not check return values or catch exceptions. It is the bare-bones needed for illustration purposes. This is the complete code snippet: import urllib, urllib2 import SimpleHTTPServer, SocketServer host = 'localhost' port = 8000 auth_url = 'https://www.space-track.org/ajaxauth/login' keps_url = ' https://www.space-track.org/basicspacedata/query/class/tle_latest/favorites/amateur/ORDINAL/1/EPOCH/%3Enow-30/format/3le ' credentials = { 'identity':'YOUR_SPACETRACK_USERNAME', 'password':'YOUR_SPACETRACK_PASSWORD' } print 'downloading keps' credentials = urllib.urlencode(credentials) request = urllib2.Request(auth_url, credentials) response = urllib2.urlopen(request) cookie = response.headers.get('Set-Cookie') request = urllib2.Request(keps_url) request.add_header('cookie', cookie) keps = urllib2.urlopen(request).readlines() open('updated_keps.txt','w').writelines(keps) print 'serving keps on %s port %d' % (host, port) Handler = SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler httpd = SocketServer.TCPServer((host, port), Handler) httpd.serve_forever() The first part of the script, downloads the keps from spacetrack and stores them into a text file named "updated_keps.txt". This file is created from the same path that the script is executed from (so that should be the folder on the desktop). The second piece of code, hosts the keps via http on your local machine, using a local-socket. To access the keps from your browser or from a third-party app, simply specify the url: http://localhost:8000/updated_keps.txt. To use this code, all you need to do is: - install python 2.7 (see http://www.python.org) - drop this script into a folder on your desktop - double click it If you would like to expand upon this, let me know and I can help out. Joseph Armbruster On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 7:42 PM, Clint Bradford <clintbradf...@mac.com>wrote: > Why AMSAT-NA for Keps? > > It has been great using their .pdb copy that seems to get updated every > Thursday evening. It has worked out marvelously for me for years. And at > least one excellent program uses it - PocketSat. > > Sent from my iPod touch. > > On Nov 27, 2013, at 3:42 PM, Stefan Wagener <wagen...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi Clint, > > > > help me understand why you would go to the AMSAT website for keps? > > _______________________________________________ > Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. > Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! > Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb > _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
