New Satellite Tracking Application Released

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Bob McGwier, N4HY, has announced the release of a new satellite tracking application entitled Visible Ephemeris.

Visible Ephemeris is a modern, spiritual successor to Quiktrak (1986), re-engineered for the Raspberry Pi 5 and modern silicon. It is capable of propagating 13,000+ satellites in real-time with sub-second updates while maintaining <5% CPU utilisation. Visible Ephemeris is high performance physics-based program using Kelso/Villado SGP4 to track satellites (all in the Celestrak TLE). It uses McGwier’s implementation of Pedro Escobal AOS/LOS search, but rewritten for altitude and not Eccentric Anomaly. The code is designed for and intended for the Raspberry Pi and displays graphics components using Web UI.

It features a Hybrid Decoupled Architecture where the UI, Orbital Mechanics, and Network Services run on independent threads, ensuring the interface never freezes—even during heavy calculation loads.

Visible Ephemeris has been released under the MIT license and further details can be found at https://github.com/n4hy/VisibleEphemerisCPP.git

Radio Alpha, the ARRL Museum and Research Library

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Radio Alpha, the ARRL Museum and Research Library

There’s a new resource from ARRL documenting the history of ham radio. Radio Alpha is the ARRL® Museum and Research Library. Radio Alpha is envisioned as a Wikipedia-like project, administered by a trusted group of volunteers. 

It aims to serve as a definitive repository of information, offering detailed descriptions and contextual data on pivotal figures, influential organisations, pioneering companies, transformative inventions, and iconic equipment that have shaped the amateur radio landscape. Radio Alpha addresses the critical need for a centralised, reliable, and easily navigable archive of amateur radio's past. 

Recognising the fragmented nature of existing historical data, this database will consolidate diverse information sources into a single, cohesive platform. Users will find meticulously researched entries, cross-referenced to provide a holistic understanding of the connections and evolutions within the hobby. A core principle of Radio Alpha is universal accessibility. Therefore, the database will be entirely free to access, ensuring that researchers, historians, enthusiasts, and the public can explore its contents without barriers. 

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Hamshack Hotline To Be Discontinued

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Hamshack Hotline, the free VOIP telecomm service is to be discounted. The service announced it would be discontinued, effective the 29th August 2025. The project began in 2018 and grew to be a global communications network with a peak establishment of 7,000 interconnections across numerous servers. Hamshack Hotline's board of directors said it will donate whatever cash reserves it may have to a charity that supports military veterans.