8.5.1 Practical Usage

To use the program tracking facility of the ACU, follow the step by step instructions below:

1. Create a "program.txt" file with the antenna pointings you want to track. SatService GmbH offers a PC Software for this purpose which calculates the antenna pointing from commonly used ephemeris data sets for geostationary satellites. You also may create the file by your own means. The file format is described in chapter '8.5.2 File Format' .
2. Set the 'tracking interval' parameter to a value significantly below the intervals between the position entries in the file. Setting it to 60 seconds will work with most applications.
3. Switch the 'tracking mode' to 'PROGRAM'.

The antenna will move as defined in the "program.txt" file. The ACU polls the file every 'tracking interval' seconds and moves the antenna if it finds a table entry which is time stamped within the next 'tracking interval'. Be aware, that the clock in the ACU must be set precisely to make the feature work as expected.