Satellites

Pass prediction, Doppler tuning, rotators, duplex radios, and the CW Sat Bridge

The satellite pointing screen predicts passes for the active amateur satellites, shows where to point, and keeps your radios on the Doppler-corrected frequencies. Orbits come from SatNOGS TLEs and transponder data; your observer location is your grid square.

Pointing and Doppler

Select a satellite to see the live azimuth and elevation, the sky-plot track, AOS/LOS times, and the Doppler-corrected downlink and pre-corrected uplink frequencies. The tuning readout stays visible while you steer.

Rotator & Trackers

Open Rotator & Trackers from the satellite tab menu or the pointing screen. Carrier Wave looks for CSN Technologies S.A.T. units and WA4MCM PSR-100 Mk2 rotors on your network automatically (at launch, when the satellites tab opens, on network changes, and every few minutes) and asks before linking a new one. A rotator you already use is re-linked silently.

  • Add by address probes a unit and works out its type from how it answers. Enter a whole network such as 192.168.20.0/24 to include a rotor on another VLAN; that network is remembered and swept from then on.
  • Point & Track on the sky view slews the linked rotator onto the selected satellite and turns Follow on.
  • Manual controls: a jog pad with a 1°, 5° or 15° step, go-to azimuth/elevation, Park and Stop. Jog buttons repeat while held. Any manual move turns Follow off so the antenna never fights the tracker.
  • The sheet shows the desired target (the satellite’s live az/el, or the rise azimuth before AOS) next to the pointing you have commanded.

PSR-100 Mk2 rotors are driven through their built-in web server, which crosses VLANs and needs no UDP setup.

Duplex Radios

For FM satellites, Duplex Radios binds one CW Bridge to the uplink handheld and one to the downlink handheld. Choose Auto (both radios follow the pass prediction) or Manual downlink (tune the downlink by ear and the uplink follows your correction), set the uplink CTCSS tone per satellite (SO-50, ISS, AO-91, AO-92 and PO-101 are preset), and start tuning. Quansheng UV-K1 / UV-K5 V3 radios running the F4HWN CAT build are supported over USB-C through the bridge.

Send to Bridge

With a CW Sat Bridge connected, long-press a pass in Upcoming Passes to build the Doppler schedule, upload it to the bridge, and arm it. The control sheet shows upload progress, the executor’s live state and frequencies, a downlink/uplink VFO flip, and an abort button. The bridge flies the pass on its own clock, so the phone can go to sleep.