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Introduction - Acknowledgment


In addition to Tom Clark's major impetus through his Orbit article, I'd like to acknowledge having looked at or read some of the many software and documentation offerings provided by Tom Kelso on the Celestial BBS (via archive.afit.af.mil), and more recently by KB5MU on the AMSAT BBS (via ftp.amsat.org). These include offerings said to be based on work by G3RUH, James Miller, and by DL4ZC, Karl Meinzer, both well-known contributors to the Amateur Satellite program.
The SGP/SGP4 code was adapted with permission from the FORTRAN listings published by Tom Kelso in the Project SpaceTrack documentation.
Christie Harper, KD4QIO, author of the "Simple Tracking Program" emailed me some useful advice on calculation of AOS and LOS.
James Miller, G3RUH, published a nice program (114BASIC.TXT, available from the AMSAT bbs) in connection with his article in the Amsat Journal, May/June 1995, "The Re-entry of OSCAR-13", from which I borrowed some principles for vector-to-keplerian conversions.
See the Bibliography for other articles whose content influenced this program.
Thanks to the many users who have given bug reports, suggestions, or other feedback - every message is appreciated. Helpful bug reports and suggestions were received from (in no particular order) Stacey Mills, WB4OKT; Jack Colson, W3TMZ; Jean-Luc Barraud, F1JEK; Joshua Powers; Vince, KD7AI; Ken Waters, N4BPY, and Kory Hamzeh, KE6VWO. Special thanks to Fabio Leite; Hans-S. Klausmann, DL5RAZ; and Richard Provencal, VE2OTT, for their assistance in debugging problems with European date and number formats. Attempts at debugging the persistent problem with 32k and 64k-color graphics drivers were made by Dennis Caton, KF0JT; Paul Williamson, KB5MU; Peter Noeth; Edgar, VE2EHP; and Perry Ogletree, N0NMC. Unfortunately, we haven't licked this one yet.
Jean-Philippe Donnio suggested the inclusion of external hypertext information files, such as his "Satellite Encyclopedia".
Alan Raichel, N3IKI has tested much of the code for the (separate) hardware interface program.
Kep files have been obtained from the N9LNQ PBBS in Champaign, IL.
My wife has also supported this project by her encouragement of my "hobby time".

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