I’ve been using an ancient Panasonic ToughBook (CF-31) as the computer to control my IC-9700 for satellite work. I liked the TB because the screen is readable in full daylight. That particular computer was never fully supported by Panasonic to run Win10, but it did. Or at least it did until an update six month ago caused issues that resulted in it taking about 15 minutes to boot up because it was failing to install the update. I tried everything I could to get rid of the update, but it kept coming back. Sigh!
Out of frustration and a desire to get back on the Satellite, I purchased a Dell 5420 Rugged Laptop with a daylight readable screen. I just got around to installing SATPC32 and getting things to work on the new laptop (which runs Win11).
I’m happy to report that it is working just fine now. I did have a QSO with Dom N1DM on CAS-4B. I was also able to get the uplink calibrated on CAS-4A, AO-7, and XW-2C. I heard KC1KQY on CAS-4A, toward the end of the pass, but I don’t think he heard me. SO-50 was also accessed just fine. I called CQ for a bit on AO-7 but a SSB station was hammering the bird pretty hard, so it was hard to hear my downlink unless I ran far too much power. Finally, I was able to hear myself on AO-73, for the first time in years. This the upline was about 5 KHz off the published frequency.
My biggest issue is my house is surrounded by 100 foot oak trees which are thick with leaves. Needless to say that isn’t an open view of the sky for satellites.
Fun to have satellite capability working again!
