How to do your own predictions

The satellite predictions posted here are calculated using a FORTRAN program and subroutines contained in code.zip, an InfoZip [PK Zip compatible] compressed archive. It will run on a Sun work station, and the small changes necessary to run under VMS are given in README.

The contents of the code.zip archive are:

mira:wright.53> unzip -v code
 Length  Method   Size  Ratio   Date    Time   CRC-32     Name ("^" ==> case
 ------  ------   ----  -----   ----    ----   ------     ---- conversion)
   4765  Deflate   2124  55%  06-28-96  11:47  89087249   README
  23061  Deflate   9393  59%  06-28-96  08:33  64a41528   plotrack.f
  49554  Deflate  13677  72%  06-24-96  08:44  7e1b0fb9   satsubs.f
  27918  Deflate   9593  66%  06-28-96  08:37  8ad2e19c   subs.f
    790  Deflate    326  59%  06-28-96  11:34  edad7fcc   plotrack.com
    959  Deflate    414  57%  06-28-96  08:24  48559d03   plotrack.csh
    187  Deflate    136  27%  06-24-96  15:42  7bd5fcda   sats.head
    173  Deflate    134  23%  06-24-96  15:42  35fdb4eb   sats.tail
    700  Deflate    356  49%  06-24-96  15:02  d6499862   tle.new
 ------          ------  ---                              -------
 108107           36153  67%                              9

• README - more information about installing the code.
• plotrack.csh is a C-shell script file that does the computation. It assumes that the files are in a sub-directory under your html directory. You must replace the latitude and longitude of LA (34.11, 118.44) with your own latitude and longitude.
• plotrack.com is a DCL command file that does the computation. It assumes that the files are in a sub-directory [.SPACE] under your html directory. This file has the compile and link commands necessary to build the executable. You must replace the latitude and longitude of LA (34.11, 118.44) with your own latitude and longitude.
• plotrack.f is the main program.
• satsubs.f contains the subroutines for calculating the satellite positions. Many of these are taken from SPACETRK.ZIP in /pub/space on archive.afit.af.mil maintained by T. S. Kelso which also contains documentation on these routines.
• subs.f contains other miscellaneous routines.
• sats.head is the header for the HTML file SATS.HTML produced by PLOTRACK.COM that contains the table of satellite pass times.
• sats.tail is the trailer for this HTML file.
• tle.new is a small subset of the required two line element file. You must get an up-to-date version of this file before generating predictions. This is posted weekly on sci.space.news or it can be obtained on the WWW or by anonymous ftp to archive.afit.af.mil in pub/space/tle.new