so ive been meaning to try LEO satellite work for probably two years now and last weekend i finally just did it. used a cheap arrow antenna and my ft-818 with a second ht for the uplink, just manually doppler tuned by ear which i know sounds crazy but it actually worked better than i expected once i got the hang of it

the pass i worked was maybe 8 minutes overhead and i made 3 contacts, which felt pretty good for a first attempt. the linear transponder on AO-73 is pretty narrow so you really have to listen carefully and keep adjusting, i kept drifting off and losing myself in the passband which was frustrating. also had to hold the yagi and tune two radios at the same time which is basically a three handed job, my wife thought i looked ridiculous standing in the backyard pointing at the sky

anyway my question is about tracking software. i was using Heavens-Above on my phone which worked fine for predicting the pass but i feel like theres probably something better for real time tracking and doppler shift display. what are people using these days, gpredict still the go-to or is there something newer worth trying

gpredict is still what most people use and honestly its pretty solid once you get it configured with fresh keps. the doppler correction plugin can actually talk to some rigs directly over CAT if you want to go that route, makes it a lot less hectic. i run it on a raspberry pi with a small screen velcroed to my tripod so i can see az/el and doppler all at once without fumbling with a phone

three contacts on your first pass is genuinely decent btw, a lot of people get nothing first time out because theyre not ready for how fast everything moves. the two radio thing does get easier, some guys use a small mixer board or just tape the ht to the yagi boom which frees up a hand. FO-29 is worth trying too when its behaving, similar linear transponder and sometimes less crowded than AO-73

i use MacDoppler on mac, works fine but its not free. if youre on windows or linux gpredict is probably the better call anyway. one thing that helped me a ton was just recording a few passes with audacity first before actually trying to make contacts, that way you can hear how fast the doppler shifts and kind of internalize it before youre also trying to key up and talk to someone