Polar Scheduler

Polrschd ported (more like rewritten, recycling a few parts) to run on python 3.7 and below. It also has extra features like station alignment, dump location, etc. Basically, predicts all the GAC transmissions for POES satellites. Original reverse engineering done here: https://github.com/sgcderek/polrschd. All dates and times are in UTC!

Also see https://github.com/zeke800/sat-tools

Port status

Everything is ported, except the orbital predictions. I am working on porting that. EDIT: Ephem gives some (very) wrong elevation numbers. After fighting with it, I have come to realize that the library Ephem hates me. I will soon post a semi-working code. I am not sure why Ephem says that all my pass degrees are negative... the main_BETA.py file also will contain a version that does not need an N2YO api key. If you have any idea WHY ephem does not work, please do not hesitate to reach out in the issues section on Github.

FAQ

What is GAC?

GAC is a dump-like downlink on NOAA POES satellites. It contains data collected from nearly the entire orbit of a POES satellite.

What do I need to receive it?

An SDR capable of running at more than 4 MSPS (I was able to get a lock at 4MSPS, tried 3MSPS, didn't work), as well as a rather large dish. I tried it on my 80cm dish and got a barely-decodable result, however I've seen people receive it (with a little noise) on 70cm dishes. But my setup isn't great, either. 100-260cm dishes work fine. EDIT: I was able to decode it! Turns out, NOAA dumps backwards at my location 🤔.

Install

Prerequisites

An N2YO API key. Is currently needed, but isn't really used. Will be needed when I add support in the future.

Install

Linux

git clone https://github.com/zeke800/Polar-Scheduler
cd Polar-Scheduler
nano secrets.py

Now, update your information in the editor! Then, CTRL+X and ENTER to close. Make sure to update the emojis as shown in the 'Known Errors' section.

python main.py

If you are using the main_BETA.py file, install pyephem!

pip install pyephem

Windows

Download the repository from github. Open secrets.py in Notepad or Python IDLE. Run the main file through Python IDLE or

python main.py

You should not need to change any ASCII characters. If you do, refer to the next section.

Known errors

SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xe2' in file main.py on line 125, but no encoding declared; see http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-0263/ for details

Systems

Raspberry Pi/Linux

Fix

Change

emoji = "✅"

and

emoji = "❎"

to any text like

emoji = "Yes"

emoji = "No"

Potential Fix (coming soon)

Switch to emoji library for Python.