What You Should Have In This Distribution
-----------------------------------------
KEPS.EXE
KEPS.CFG
KEPSMAN.EXE
KEPSMAN.XTR
NOAAS.SEL
WINPKEPS.TXT

What This System Does
---------------------
KEPS.EXE is a server that scans all downloaded bulls for Keplerian
elements in NASA format. Any that it finds are saved in a
user-designated directory. They are saved as one element set per file.
The format of the file names is <catalogue number>.KEP. Existing
elements with a more recent epoch date will not be overwritten.

If you don't know what Keplerian elements are, and you don't know what
sort of bulls are likely to contain them, PLEASE don't bother to install
this system - you will be wasting your time!

KEPSMAN.EXE is a WinPack "extra" program. It is available from the
WinPack File menu and allows you to view your list of Keps, delete them,
prune them by epoch date, sort them by either satellite name or
catalogue number and output all the Keps or just a selection to a file
for importing into tracking programs, etc.

PLEASE NOTE!! Because KEPS.EXE scans *ALL* downloaded bulls, there is a
slight performance overhead. On a DX2/66 it isn't at all noticeable, but
it might be on slower PCs.

Installation
------------
Put KEPS.EXE and KEPS.CFG in WINPACK\SERVERS\BULLS. *YOU MUST* edit
KEPS.CFG and put in it the name of a directory where you want to keep
the Keps. If you don't do that you may get in a big mess! This directory
MUST exist.

Put KEPSMAN.EXE and KEPSMAN.XTR in the WINPACK directory. Restart
WinPack and you should find a "Keps Manager" option on the File menu.

PLEASE NOTE - if you are using a version of WinPack older than V6.1, it
will not have the ability to add programs to the File menu. In that case
you should add an icon for KEPSMAN.EXE to your WinPack program group and
run KEPSMAN like any other Windows program.

The Server In Use
-----------------
The server is totally automatic. If you download bulls using Auto-BBS
that contain NASA format Keps and they don't start accumulating in the
directory that you have specified in KEPS.CFG, then you have done
something wrong - so read these instructions again!

KepsMan In Use
--------------
When you select "Keps Manager" on the WinPack File menu, KepsMan should
run and present you with a list of the Keps that are in the directory
designated in KEPS.CFG. NB - it assumes KEPS.CFG is in the SERVERS\BULLS
directory. If you haven't put KepsMan in your main WINPACK directory, it
won't be able to find KEPS.CFG and the list will be empty!

Controls:-
Click on the list to select or deselect element sets.

"Select All" - select all the elements in the list.

"Select None" - deselect any selected elements.

"Delete" - delete all the selected elements.

"Sort Cat.No/Sort Name" - change the sort sequence for the list.

"Output From" - if you haven't created any SEL files (see below), then
your only available option will be "Selection", which means output the
elements that are highlighted in the list. If you have created some SEL
files, then these will be available to give you pre-selected output
lists.

"Output File Name" - this is the name of the file into which the Keps
will be written. If you are outputting from a SEL list, then the name
will default to the name set in the list, but you can alter it. However,
any changes you make to the name will not be saved back into the list.

"Output" - output all the selected elements, either your manual
selections from the list, or the elements listed in the chosen SEL
list, into the named file, so they can be imported into tracking
programs, etc.

"Count" - shows the number of element sets in the list.

"Prune" - delete all element sets with an epoch date older than your
PC's current date minus the number of weeks specified.

SEL Files
---------
You can create SEL files to give you automatic selection lists of
satellites, and an output file name. You create these files in the main
WINPACK directory. They must have a ".SEL" extension, e.g. AMATEUR.SEL,
WEATHER.SEL, etc.

Any lines in a SEL file starting with a ';' are ignored, so you can put
in some comments. Blank lines are also ignored. All other lines are
regarded as significant.

The first significant line must be the name of the default output file
where you want these Keps to be written. This file name must be valid.

All other significant lines describe a Keps set that you want to be
included in this selection. The format of the line is:-
<cat_no> [<satellite_name>]

<cat_no> is the satellite catalogue number, <satellite_name> is the
name you want put in the Keps for this satellite and is optional.
Examples of valid lines:-

19531
21263 NOAA-12

The above would output Keps for satellite catalogue number 19531, and
for satellite number 21263. However, the name put in the element set for
21263 would be NOAA-12, irrespective of what name is in the actual
element set on your system. The idea of being able to specifiy a name is
so that you can always have the same name for a satellite in your output
Keps, even though different Keps sources may give it different names.
E.g. "NOAA12", "NOAA-12", "NOAA/12", etc.

If you include a satellite in a SEL file for which no element set exists
on your system, then the entry are ignored.

An example SEL file - NOAAS.SEL is included with the system.

Disclaimer
----------
I'm not really "into" satellites, so if this system proves to be fairly
useless, all I can say is - sorry!

History
-------
V1.0 - first general release.
V1.1 - added the SEL files feature.
V1.2 - fixed a bug that caused KepsMan to show an incorrect epoch date
       if an element set had leading spaces rather than leading zeros
       in the epoch day field.
V1.3 - fixed a bug that stop Output working if the list was sorted by
       Cat.No.
V1.4 - KEPS.EXE changed to trim spaces from the ends of lines in element
       sets. I noticed that occasionally a set would be rejected because
       of incorrect line length when the only problem was spaces on the
       end of a line.
V1.5 - KEPS.EXE changed to ignore blank lines. I occasionally noticed
       element sets which appeared to be double spaced.


73 - Roger Barker
G8MZX @ GB7SKG.#15.GBR.EU
G4IDE @ GB7OAR.#16.GBR.EU
roger@peaksys.demon.co.uk

April 1997
