From either the C4 or the Delfi-C3 launch, I gathered that at reaching the altitude for orbit, the various satellites were ejected from the launch vehicle and individually allocated a Norad #. AO DO etc. designators came later. There was a bit of difficulty as I recollect in identifying which bird was which as there were, I think, up to six satellites in the launch package. As they each moved apart and into their individual orbits, the situation became clearer which Norad # was the one of interest to the appropriate ground station. So a bit of a scrabble initially. I don't know how this early communication with Norad space-track.org was negotiated, but organisations that participate in these launches obviously have an intimate relationship which must have the lines buzzing around the time of orbital insertion. This is where the Morse ID beacon and a large audience pays dividends as Amateur stations on the other side of the world can often be the first to let you know that your bird is alive and the transmitter working. I believe that it took up to a couple of days for the confusion to subside (maybe less) and to know which vehicle to track. The satellite designator was confirmed shortly after this process had been sorted out and TLEs became publicly available. They were available published directly from the team who obviously had an early heads up from the trackers.
Programs, such as Sebastian Stoff's Orbitron and others require your location information, relevant up to date TLE data and for the radio up/down link frequencies. The program provides the instantaneous azimuth and elevation data, as well as the instantaneous up and down frequencies. The update period can be one of several selected between one and sixty seconds. With control of rotator tracking and radio tuning, life is good.
As Geoff07 pointed out with his reference to 'Wisp', a number of interface protocols are implemented: Alarm, WispDDE, SpidAlpha and MyDDE. These are all apparently Windows client server protocols which may or may not have survived the test of time. The program is well respected by amateur and professional trackers alike and appears to work well using WINE under Linux, but it is no longer under development. Personally I have no knowledge about how to get at the AZ, EL or frequency data.
Any advice gratefully received.
There are other programs out there that do a similar job, such as “Ham Radio DeLuxe” to name but one.
On the question of improving the radar signature, that's one for those that know about those things.
Such projects deserve to receive lots of support from those that can make a ground station contribution and with ADC converters built into PICAXE chips, the design of DIY rotator controllers has become a lot easier.
http://www.electric-web.org/tracking_antenna.htm
Does my passion show? ;-) Lots to glue together with PICAXE projects, for sure!