It's a little program I created for my Palm V 'connected organizer'. It's not very useful on its own, it's a tool for PocketSat. PocketSat is a program that can tell you when certain satellites (or space stations or space shuttles) are visible at your location. You can get PocketSat here. In order to tell you when to look where for a satellite, PocketSat needs information about the path the satellite takes while orbiting earth. This information is published on the internet on web pages containing data in the so-called TLE (Two Line Elements) format. You put those web pages onto your PC, convert them to a format that the Palm understands, HotSync and PocketSat gives the information you are looking for. So far the theory.
In practice there is one little problem: Satellites (and even more so space shuttles) change their course over time. Therefore you have to keep your TLE data up-to-date. If you are a bona fide satellite spotter, this is not a problem. If however, like me, you live in a big city with bright lights at nights, you only occasionally find yourself in a remote spot during a clear night. And that's when you realize that your TLE data is hopelessly out of date and your PC is at home.
Not all hope is lost. If like me you have a mobile phone (cell phone if your in the US :-) with a built in modem you could (in theory) connect the Palm to the internet, get the latest TLE data, import it into PocketSat and soon you'll know when to look where. Fortunately that's exactly what GetTLE does.
You can download GetTLE here. The program is free software distributed with source code under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). I wrote it because I needed it and I have no intention selling it (I've got better things to do)
(Of course you have to install the program on your Palm. The only file needed is called GetTLE.prc. I just assume that you know how to install it. If you don't : Read the Palm's manual or ask someone else for help.). GetTLE stores some information in a MemoPad memo with the title 'GetTLE'. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of GetTLE you might have to run the MemoPad application and delete the memo, as its format has changed. GetTLE will warn you about this if it finds an old-style memo.
First you have to connect your Palm to the internet from the 'Network' section in the 'Preferences' if you are using an actual Palm. If you are using the Palm OS™ Emulator (I've tested it with version 3.0a2) on a PC connected to the internet you can use GetTLE by selecting 'Redirect NetLib calls to host TCP/IP' under 'Settings->Properties'. Another option that will work if your Palm is connected to a PC connected to the internet is MochaSoft's Mocha W32 PPP program.
Then you start the GetTLE program. You should be presented with a screen similar to this one:
You then tap on the 'TLE sites' pop-up menu near the top of the screen and you'll see a list of web site descriptions like this:
You select a web site by tapping on it and the web address of that site shows up in the text entry field next to 'http://'. Then you tap on the 'Get' button like this:
At the bottom of the screen you'll be able to monitor how many bytes GetTLE has received and how many TLE sets it has found so far. It can take a while to receive longer lists of TLE data and this way you can see that something is happening.
You'll then see a message telling you how many TLE records were found on the web page (or maybe an error message if the connection could not be established):
Next you should start PocketSat, choose 'Satellites...' from the 'PocketSat' menu...
...then 'Import from DB...' from the 'Satellites' menu:
You should now see an entry for a database called 'GetTLE satellites'. You select that database and tap on the 'Import' button:
PocketSat should then tell you that it has imported the records from the database:
That's all. Now you have the latest satellite data in PocketSat. It might be a good idea to delete the database now, because GetTLE will keep adding records to it, rather than replace them. You can either do it using PocketSat or using GetTLE. In GetTLE you select 'Clear database' from the 'Options' menu like this
Then you confirm that you do want to delete the records in the database:
That will delete the TLE entries in the database. It's not strictly necessary to do this, but if you use GetTLE a lot it would use a lot of memory and PocketSat would take more and more time to import the database.
As you might have noticed there are two more items on the 'Options' menu. 'About GetTLE' displays a dialog telling you which version of GetTLE you are using. If you then tap on the info icon in the top right corner of the dialog you'll see the Gnu GPL licence:
The last item on the 'Options' menu is 'Start/Stop Logging'. If you select this option GetTLE will start writing a memo containing stuff that you don't want to know. This option is used for debugging the program and best left alone.
GetTLE keeps a list of web pages in a memo with the title 'GetTLE'. This memo is automatically created the first time you run GetTLE. The first line must read 'GetTLE' for the program to recognize the memo. The memo then contains pairs of lines. The first one contains the web address (without the http:// bit). The next line contains a brief description of that web site. This is the text displayed in GetTLE's popup menu. You can use the built-in Memo Pad application to add or remove entries.
Changes in Version 1.1:
You can send email to at GetTLE@fibs.demon.co.uk. I can guarantee to read it, but not that I'll answer it, though I'll try. If you want more features, I invite you to wait until I make the source code available and then do it yourself. and send me a patch.