[amsat-bb] Re: keps age

[Jim Walls]

On 2/19/2011 8:09 PM, Bob- W7LRD wrote:
> How does one determine the age of the keps  in a computer?

I guess that depends on what you are trying to look with.  I use Nova 
for windows and it will tell how old the keps are for the selected 
satellite by selecting AutoTracking > Summary.  That resulted in:
 > Satellite name : OSCAR 10
 > Catalog number : 14129
 > Keps age       : 1174d,03hr
 > Next AOS       :
 > Location       : Glendora, CA
 > Latitude       :  34° 07' 00" N
 > Longitude      : 117° 51' 00" W
 > Algorigthm     : G3RUH
 > AutoTracking   : Disabled

The 3rd line shows the age of the keps.  Yes, those really are 3 1/2 
years old...

If you look at a TLE file, the epoch time is the 3rd element in a 2 
digit year followed by the 3 digits before the decimal and a bunch after 
the decimal point.  So in the TLE below, the epoch time was 32.75507474 
days into 2006.
AO-07
1 07530U 74089B   06032.75507474 -.00000028  00000-0  10000-3 0 05556
2 07530 101.5919 078.9684 0012116 149.1255 211.0532 12.53571784428419

Here is a web site that explains it.
http://www.satobs.org/element.html

-- 
73
-------------------------------------
Jim Walls - K6CCC
jim at k6ccc.org
Ofc:  818-548-4804
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/k6ccc/
AMSAT Member 32537 - WSWSS Member 395