Category: SDR and software

OscarWatch by Peter @mm9sql is a new desktop satellite tracking multi-platform software. It takes all the best parts from all other tracking softwares and bundles it into one package.

Peter have done a lot of work with the radio doppler control part and – as I see it – it is a huge improvement from what you have seen before in older software.

OscarWatch is still under development (summer 2026) and can be downloaded from:
https://github.com/magicbug/OscarWatch-Tracker

This is the current features list 30 Juno 2026, copied from GitHub:

• World map: equirectangular Earth texture with satellite subpoint, ground track, footprint overlays (optional motion arrows), your QTH, and an optional remote DX station grid marker; map time scrubbing from the status bar (hardware tracking stays live)
• Sky plot: polar view of satellite azimuth/elevation relative to your station; click to focus; expand/collapse state is remembered
• TLE catalog: fetched from https://tle.oscarwatch.org/, cached under %AppData%/OscarWatch/
• TLE auto-update: manual refresh, on startup (if stale), or every 6 hours while running (Settings → Tracking)
• Satellite picker: choose which spacecraft to track
• Pass predictions: upcoming passes with TCA (time of closest approach / max elevation), min-elevation and min-duration filters; sidebar View pass plot for a single-station polar chart
• Pass planner: multi-station profiles (home / portable), pass quality filters, satellite filter, pass radar gallery (polar plots for all upcoming passes of one satellite), and .ics calendar export for contest or field-day planning
• Mutual pass finder: find passes visible from two stations at once (Passes → Mutual pass finder)
• DX station monitor: enter a remote Maidenhead grid on the map; see where that station is and live azimuth/elevation for the focused satellite from their QTH (compact draggable overlay)
  
• Live telemetry: azimuth, elevation, range, and altitude updated every second (UTC)
• Voice announcements: optional spoken “rising” alerts when a satellite crosses a configurable elevation while ascending (e.g. “Alpha Oscar Zero Seven is rising”); Settings → Voice
• Pass recording: optional automatic WAV capture from a line-in or USB audio device while the focused satellite is above configurable elevation thresholds; Settings → Recording. Files save to %AppData%/OscarWatch/recordings/ by default as {sat-name}-{yy}-{MM}-{dd}-{HH}-{mm}.wav (UTC). A red REC badge appears on the pass row while recording.
• Doppler frequencies: draggable overlay on the world map with transponder modes from the satellite database, live radio/sat uplink & downlink, RX offsets (separate stored values for Voice and CW on linear SSB), CTCSS (access/arm), and Voice/CW toggle for linear SSB (header buttons + Ctrl+W; CAT/Cloudlog follow Settings → Radio → Linear CW: keep receive in USB/LSB)
• Transponder database editor: Satellites → Manage transponder database… (add satellites from your TLE catalog or a custom name, Import/Export JSON, edit modes); Satellites → Update transponder database… merges published modes from tle.oscarwatch.org/satellite_database.json (new entries added with your consent; local edits kept on conflicts unless you accept remote). See documents/satellite-database.md
  
• Radio CAT: doppler tracking, satellite/split setup, Main/Sub VFOs, uplink CTCSS where supported; Settings → Radio (see Supported hardware)
• Rotator control: serial pass tracking, manual park, and manual rotator (az/el dialog in Standby for quick contacts between passes); Settings → Rotator (see Supported hardware)
• Cloudlog: optional Radio API v2 uplink/downlink when tracking (Settings → Cloudlog)
• Appearance: light, dark, or system theme (sky plot adapts; world map image stays light); 12- or 24-hour clock; optional greyline and footprint motion arrows on the map

From ANS-165: Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, has released CardSat, a free, open-source amateur satellite ground station controller that runs on the M5Stack Cardputer ADV – a credit-card-sized ESP32-S3 computer with a built-in keyboard, color display, and microSD slot. The project lives at https://github.com/prstoetzer/CardSat.

CardSat downloads GP orbital and transponder data over WiFi, predicts passes locally with SGP4, and drives a radio over CAT with real-time Doppler correction. It works fully offline once data is cached and deep-sleeps between passes to save battery.

Its Doppler engine uses the AMSAT “One True Rule” correcting both uplink and downlink so your signal holds the same spot in the passband for the whole pass. You can tune with the Cardputer keys or the radio’s own knob – CardSat follows the dial and re-applies correction with nothing drifting.

Radios: Ten rigs across three CAT families – Icom CI-V (IC-820/821/910/970/ 9100/9700), Yaesu (FT-847, FT-736R), and Kenwood (TS-790, TS-2000) – plus native Icom LAN (RS-BA1) control of a networked Icom IC-9700 over WiFi. Linear-transponder passband tracking, automatic sideband selection, and automatic FM CTCSS tones are included. CardSat can also act as a rigctld/rotctld server for a PC, or as a rigctl client to a remote rig.

Operating and planning: An all-favorites Next Passes schedule, an AOS alarm, deep-sleep until AOS, elevation and polar plots with ground track, sun/eclipse status, a mutual-window finder for co-visibility with a remote station, a 10-day pass overview, a 60-day illumination raster, a time-step simulation, and a multi-page orbital analysis (including beta angle and decay).

Award chasing: CardSat lists what’s under the footprint right now – workable grid squares (VUCC), US states (WAS), and the full 340-entity DXCC list (major countries as polygons, island/micro-entities by reference point from cty.dat) – live or as a per-pass union.

Plus: Az/el rotator control (GS-232, rotctl, PstRotator, or direct Yaesu) with park, pre-position, per-pass flip, and manual jog; Sun/Moon pointing for sun-noise and EME aiming; QSO logging with ADIF export that doesn’t interrupt Doppler; AMSAT OSCAR Status activity marks; a world map with all footprints; a GPS sky plot; selectable element sources; on-device help; and screenshots.

The Cardputer ADV uses an ESP32-S3 (4 MB flash, no PSRAM, 240×135 LCD, 56-key keyboard). Controlling a radio requires a CAT interface suited to the rig; the 3.3 V GPIO is not 5 V tolerant, so CAT lines must never be wired direct.

Status: CardSat builds and runs on the Cardputer, with pass prediction, the plots, mutual-window search, GPS, the AOS alarm, deep sleep, and the offline caches all confirmed on hardware. The CAT frequency encoders, the Icom LAN backend, the rotator backends, and the network server/client paths are implemented and host-tested but have not yet driven a real radio or rotator on the air. Operators willing to test these paths and report results are encouraged to do so.

The repository includes firmware, a full manual, wiring guides, and a printable key-reference card.

[AMSAT-SM thanks ANS for the text and ANS thanks Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, AMSAT Executive Vice President for the above information.]

Nooelec, manufacturer of LNAs and SDR equipment, releases a new downconverter. It is designed to convert signals from the 1.55 GHz to 3.1 GHz range into the frequency range of software-defined radio devices like RTL-SDRs.

Initial price is set to around 90 US$ and it makes it an interesting product for S-band RX if you have a SDR since before.

Nooelec product page

Also there is a first review on Youtube from dereksgc