Guide Pass scheduler

Pass scheduler

The Passes window (View > Passes) can take satellite passes by itself: it starts the receiver, tunes it, follows the Doppler shift and records each pass without you. It is for weather satellites and other passes you list in the window.

Turning it on

1. Open Passes, set the Receiver position (the same position as the ADS-B antenna position) and load the satellite elements (TLE).
2. Tick the satellite groups you care about and set the min el slider (passes that never rise this high are ignored).
3. Tick Schedule passes by itself. The next 24 hours appear as a strip: the passes the scheduler takes on the top lane (amber when a pass is trimmed), the ones it skips below. Hover a pass for its times and maximum elevation. In the pass table a pass is marked as skipped when the SDR is reserved, the pass is too short, or a higher priority pass overlaps.

How it chooses

One SDR serves one pass at a time.

• Priority (0 to 9 per satellite group, higher wins). When two passes overlap, the higher priority wins; a tie goes to the pass with the higher maximum elevation, then to the earlier rise.
• A lower priority pass is trimmed to the part the SDR is free for when that part is still worth keeping. A slot shorter than two minutes is not taken.
• The receiver is brought up 20 seconds before a slot starts, to tune and start the decoder.
• Keep the SDR free every day reserves a daily window (from and to hours) that the scheduler never uses, for your own listening.
• A receiver you started yourself is not interrupted: that time is treated as busy and the passes it overlaps are skipped or trimmed.

The settings (groups shown, priorities, the daily reservation, minimum elevation) are remembered.

Status: checked with the planning logic in unit tests and with synthetic passes; not yet run unattended against real satellites for days.

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See also: Tutorials and guides, FAQ, Troubleshooting.