[amsat-bb] LVB Tracker Mk 2

[Howard Long]

Folks

I've had quite a substantial increase in enquiries regarding the LVB Tracker
over the past few months, and a significant number of those have been
regarding the LVB Tracker 2.

In case you are unaware, the LVB Tracker 2 is an updated version of the
original tracker, its fundamental difference being that it performs real
time prediction and tracking by itself without the need to be hooked up to a
computer.

All that is needed to upgrade an LVB Tracker 1 is a replacement $10 PIC
(18F2620) that is pin-compatible with the original PIC. Other than
programming the new PIC, no other changes are needed: you don't even need to
switch on your soldering iron!

The part number is available form a number of sources, for example:

Mouser 579-PIC18F2620-I/SP
Digikey PIC18F2620-I/SP-ND
RS (UK) 623-0768
Farnell (UK) 1212698

Until a couple of weeks ago I had not touched the code for well over two
years, but with the new interest I have spent a bit of time fixing a couple
of known bugs (see below).

Please be aware that as this is a work in progress, I am sure there are a
number of things that aren't quite right yet, so I welcome your feedback.

Bug fixes 2.0c:

o Second attempt to fix the hanging during AOS/LOS calculation
 
o Additional menu option to delete all satellites
 
o Fixed a Kep Load bug that occasionally incorrectly indicated a bad
checksum

18F2620 programming software:
http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker2/PicProg2.exe
Hex file: http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker2/2620test20c.hex
Sources: http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker2/2620test_2_0c_001.zip 

73, Howard G6LVB