Re: Ransom site elsets

Ron Lee (ronlee@pcisys.net)
Fri, 12 Jun 1998 20:33:36 -0600

There is a program called "GBUTIL" that I believe eliminates
duplicate entries and adds common names.  It was at the Ransom site.

Ron Lee


At 10:50 AM 6/12/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Thanks to Philip Clarke for providing one means around the
>OIG problem.
>
>As a very casual computer user but avid satellite observer,
>I am wondering what this will mean for others like myself,
>whom I suspect may be the majority. I tried downloading the
>gbYYMMDD.zip file from Dave Ransom's site and came up with
>almost 10,000 elsets. The file is useless for SatSpy 2.5, in
>that the program relies on the common name for
>identification and comes up with a blank listing of
>satellites (since the file uses no common names).  I haven't
>yet memorized numerical designators for all the 10,000 sats.
>Many of us go strictly by the common name and only use the
>NORAD or Internatl. designation if reference is made here
>only to that, and to see the launch date. Even if the names
>appeared, the time to produce usable pass data would be
>increased by a factor of at least 5.
>
>I hope what you are all talking about is a method of
>producing a molczan-size file with common names that will
>also be useful to casual observers like myself. 100 elsets
>is too small a file, but 10,000 is too big. I'm glad to see
>that those who are capable are doing some constructive
>thinking to solve the upcoming problem. As for my thoughts
>on NASA/OIG, I will keep that to myself, but will certainly
>join Bart in lending my name to a petition or other
>communication to OIG.
>
>Thanks to all who provide us casual observers with the
>usable data!
>
>Eric Vondra
>Wampum, PA, USA
>
>