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[andfly]

I finally "felt something"!

This morning, coinciding with the scheduled contact between the Space Station and a school in Rome (IT), I set up the connection to an Open Web Rx Station (CISAR in Assisi, Perugia (IT)) which is "in the right place" for receive the broadcast.
The radio was phenomenal and picked up the radio signal very well.
I was a little less good and, perhaps thanks to the emotion, I was not able to capture everything but equally I hope that the resulting video gives an idea of what can be obtained from these online radio stations and stimulates others to try the same thrilling experience.

Good simulation, in OUTERRA, everyone! 

[aWac9]

magnificent.. another step for humanity

[aWac9]

[andfly]

Very nice 
and ... what music !!

[PytonPago]

ISS FM RADIO LISTENING MODE 145800 Khz Using SDR radio online

I realized that manual radio listening operations are quite complicated because the high speed of the ISS requires rapid changes of radio receiver station.
So I tried to automate the operations by introducing a new simulation mode.
You enter "radio listening" mode with the combination of the keys Ctrl + A.
The program probes the positions of the set receiving stations, chooses the one closest to the Space Station and automatically opens a new page of the brownser with the site of the chosen SDR radio.

At this point it will be up to the user to manually complete the settings that cannot be controlled automatically.

+ Enable audio (not all brownsers do this automatically, often you have to click on an "audio on" or "start audio" button or something similar.
+ Make sure that the listening frequency is the right one (145800 Khz, 2MT band): it should already be set automatically but ... not all SDR radio managers are the same.
+ Set frequency modulation reception (FM button).
+ Adjust the listening volume.
+ If necessary, insert the squelch to eliminate background noise in the absence of signal.

It sounds complicated but, with a little practice, it only takes a few seconds.
Now you can return to the simulation of the ISS by clicking on the Outerra screen that is still open below or on the relative icon in the status bar.
The audio signal of the listening station will be the "background" to the simulation.

Every ten seconds a new check is carried out on the radio closest to the ISS: if the radio is already in use, nothing happens, if the chosen radio is different, a new window will be opened in the brownser with the new radio and the user will repeat the procedure just illustrated, remembering, first of all, to delete the window with the old radio.

In these days of rehearsals to refine the procedures of the program I have not yet received any transmission but, from the readings on the Web, it seems that, sporadically, in the free moments, some astronauts delight in amateur radio broadcasts towards the earth so ... every time could be the good one!
By consulting the calendar of scheduled broadcasts with schools
https://www.amsat-on.be/ariss-calendar-with-scheduled-contacts-by-the-ariss-operation-team/
however, one should have the guarantee of pick up something by listening at the right time.

And now my due thanks to fly77 who, with its Worldradio program, has inspired my work. 
I blatantly copied his method (which I did not know) of storing radio station data in a separate json file from the main script, obtaining a file that can be easily edited by anyone without the risk of touching the program.

In this regard it is really advisable, for those who have experience in radio reception, to take a look at the file of the radio stations set (radio_SDR.json in the ISS / Script folder) because the criterion with which I compiled it only takes into account the coverage while it would be preferable to also consider the "performance" of the receiving station based on the equipment and antennas.
It is possible to replace the stations set with other more "performing" ones or add them for better coverage (there are still many free places).
At the site: http://websdr.org/ you can find the list of SDR radios available on the Web.

You can download the updated version of the ISS at the usual link.

IMPORTANT
Copy the NEW Andfly_plugin.dll located in the data plugins folder
in the plugins folder of the Outerra program
 
Once again ...

Have fun !!! 

I have been going hinking with my firend with a TRX for years now .. this is a beautifull adition to Outerra ! ... was sometimes tuning to the open ISS ferquancy ( US and Russian ) lots of times and had them caught even on spacewalks. Its fantastic to get a signal like that in real life, sometimes, even in your own garden.

In the radioamateur circles, they often use repeaters to push signal further and that friend of mine talks like this often with other guys this way. I plan to make one myself on my roof one day and i just got a really interresting idea/question - would it be possible to relay the signal into Outerra ? I mean, the repeater at my roof would send the sound to my PC, and that would relay it to an outerra location like this ( could make a model for it later too ). Basically, you could listen to it trough OT online, if having the mod and being close to it. Dont thing it be good to put a two way comm into it, but im fairly sure if this would work, one could send audio the other way out too - to the real life repeater as well ... It would be interresting to comunicate with someone from/to OT by a real TRX station.

[andfly]

Hi  PytonPago !

First of all it is a great pleasure to hear from you here on the forum !   

You have highlighted a very interesting aspect about the possibility of receiving communication, from space, with online radios.
There is not only listening on the amateur frequency of 145800 Khz, used for scheduled transmissions between the ISS and schools.
The space station and, in general, all space missions are continuously in communication with the earth on other frequencies which are most likely available on online radios.
If we are not dealing with encrypted transmissions, it would be very interesting to investigate the possibility of "witnessing" these communications that would allow you to feel emotionally involved with astronauts in intense moments such as spacewalks or in the more normal ones of routine activities.
It is definitely a topic that deserves further investigation!

As for the possibility of connecting Outerra users with a MOD created for this purpose, I too think it would be possible (the existence of countless voice chats and environments created for this specific purpose, such as Skype, confirm this).
Even the possibility of channeling the audio stream on a TX used for this purpose would certainly be feasible ...
But this is a job absolutely beyond the capabilities of a normal modder and would require precise knowledge and specific skills.

In fact, in the ISS MOD, the program is able to simply choose the online radio closest to the location of the space station (from a pre-built database) and open the corresponding Web page on Brownser. It cannot interact directly with the radio settings because I have no idea how it can be done ...
However, listening to radio communications in the background when "flying" with the ISS in Outerra should add a little excitement to the simple graphic interaction.

This was the goal I had set myself and the only possible one for my current abilities.   

[aWac9]

Some time ago Windows was updated and since then the ISS station does not work for me
happened to someone else???

[fly77]

What does not work ?  here everything seems fine ...except in eng.log appears an error
19:36:42.216 ERROR: Cannot get file stats "D:/Outerra2020-userdata/Outerra/data\earth7/weather/2018-08-08/weather-2000.din.zs"!
when spawning the ISS but it does not seem to affect it as far as i can tell

[andfly]

Everything works fine for me too ...
Maybe a look at your eng.log could help ... can you post it ?

[fly77]

Windows update happened today for me..but ISS still is OK

[andfly]

***      New version of the Space Station Model.

I managed to optimize the program by making the internet connection, necessary to download the starting data of the position calculations, in TLE format, directly from the plugin and thus making the system call to the Windows program CURL.EXE superfluous.
In this way the code, despite being more complex, was more stable, even in the case of subsequent reloads which, lately, were causing me frequent crashes.
I then added some new functions which, I hope, will make this model more enjoyable.

For details you can download the New Manual:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11tekmHpL5z-J81HhOfO4JK3OIMQol_cy/view?usp=sharing

To download the complete New Version use the usual LINK.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-948hiPEh3U92lIjPGWRJDKls-BwJH1S/view?usp=sharing

As always  ...

GOOD FUN !!     

[fly77]

***      New version of the Space Station Model.

I managed to optimize the program by making the internet connection, necessary to download the starting data of the position calculations, in TLE format, directly from the plugin and thus making the system call to the Windows program CURL.EXE superfluous.
In this way the code, despite being more complex, was more stable, even in the case of subsequent reloads which, lately, were causing me frequent crashes.
I then added some new functions which, I hope, will make this model more enjoyable.

oooh ! I was just  looking now for a way to do internet connections from within the plugin since besides fetch GET and POST calls its not possible from within outerra's HTML to establish a connection to external websites/servers.
if you like you can get the ISS data from within a HTML such as vehicle config HTML (which is called by t key) just using fetch ...its really easy and works....see code snippet below.

Could you share your plugin code with me ? (private mail is OK) ...or maybe for what I want i still need to do the CURL.exe windows call...idk  but you also did that so that old plugin code could be also interesting for me if you are available to share it 

by the way here is the HTML code snippet to get ISS position ..that you can use inside vehicle_config.html for instance of the tatra

Code: [Select]


<body>

 <p> The  ISS lat lon are :  <span id="ISSpos"></span> </p>

</body>

<script>
        async function catchISS(){   
            const URL = "https://api.wheretheiss.at/v1/satellites/25544"; 
            const response = await fetch(URL);
            const data = await response.json();
            console.log(data);
           document.getElementById("ISSpos").textContent= "lat " + data.latitude + " : lon " + data.longitude;
         }

       catchISS().then(response=>{
            console.log("yay! connected to ISS !");
        })
        .catch(error=>{
            console.log("error!");
            console.error(error);
        });*/

</script>


[KW71]

***      New version of the Space Station Model.

Cool!! 

[fly77]

yes  !  Cool !

[andfly]

by the way here is the HTML code snippet to get ISS position ..that you can use inside vehicle_config.html for instance of the tatra

Really very interesting!
I too had tried, at the beginning of the construction of the ISS, to use HTML to "exit" the constraints of Outerra and face the Web, but without success, while you immediately found the right way!

As for the plugin code I have, unfortunately, to give you a disappointment.
Not only have I failed to include Curl in the plugin but I'm also unable to talk to a website or server...
The solution that I luckily found comes from the discovery of the formidable Dr. T.S.Kelso's CelesTrak site, created way back in 1985.
Perhaps precisely because of its longevity, the site can communicate satellite data by responding to a simple "Http Request" in addition to the more current "Https Request" (protected by SSL encryption) as required by almost all WEB sites.
GitHub contains many projects to perform simple Http Request, I chose one composed of a single file and its inclusion in the Outerra plugin project was very simple (contrary to the inclusion of CURL, composed of numerous files and complete with coding of SSL security).

If I had found a solution or an interesting novelty that could have helped us solve the problems highlighted in the discussion we had on the inclusion of CURL I would certainly have continued to write in that tread ... so, unfortunately, it was not .. I just used one trick and got lucky.

However, a small novelty, in terms of programming, is contained in this new version of the ISS.
To create a dialog box in which to enter the Ariss Contacts data, I wrote a small program in Visual Basic Form which, compiled into an "exe" file, is executed by the plugin with the usual system call.
If you are interested I can share the code with great pleasure.
(it might have been easier to use HTML, but it's a language I don't know while Visual Basic is part of my cultural background)

I am following with great interest the progress of your attempt to build a multiplayer mode in Outerra and I hope you will soon arrive at the results that you aim for.
 

And now, as usual, I take the opportunity to ask the usual question ...
I think I've read that you can call an HTML file execution from a template script with any key combination...
How you do it ?
I only knew the "T" key method, which calls the configuration...