I was wondering if we could set up an XML server that provides the following information: mapping of city/state/country locations into latitude and longitude... As well as maybe satellite information along the lines of what lyngsat.com, such as the satellite name, its offset (in degrees, of course), bands, transponder info (number/id, frequency, polarization, FEC, inversion, etc)... as well as the channel information grouping within each transponder (channel name, encryption type, format, SR, SID, VPID, NID, TID, AID, etc). It should be possible, for instance, to write a short program that queries for the user's city, state, and country, and get a terrestrial fix... from the fix, figure out the visible satellites horizon-to-horizon, ask the user which satellites to put into the bouquet, filter the channel selection, and then write out a channels.conf (and satpos.conf, etc). In fact, from this information, a positioner could do a slow scan of the sky, figuring out the optimal positions for satellites, programming the position numbers into the rotor, or else saving the angular positions into a configuration file, etc. Does that seem reasonable? Thanks, -Philip
