[amsat-bb] Re: Equipment and ITUNE

[Anthony Monteiro]

At 03:41 AM 10/20/2007, john heath wrote:
>Hi Tony and the list
>
>I also use the excellent InstanTrack software.
>Runs fine on an ancient laptop discarded by my employer.
>
>Didn't know about the option to use the parallel"printer" port on old PC's.
>
>Is that the way to do rotator control and Doppler at the same time.
>
>Serial port to the CAT port on the radio - doing this already
>Parallel port to the rotator control box - would like to do this
>
>What would the command line look like in the .cfg file

Hi John,

Yes, you can do doppler and rotor control at the same time on
a typical old laptop by using the serial port for CAT and the
LPT port for rotor control.

InstantTrack can work with any software that supports the
Kansas City Tracker interface. You can download the parallel
port driver software for FODTRACK and the WB5IPM Controller
from the AMSAT Software archive for free at:

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/softwareArchive.php#pc-rot

There are probably a few other as well.

My own favorite is the iRotor driver for the Orbit 360 rotors
but of course I may be a bit biased! The software and article about
building the interface can be downloaded from here:

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/downloads/iROTOR1.zip

Sadly, Orbit360s have become harder to find these days but
perhaps there are other cheap TV antenna rotators that could be used.

73,
Tony AA2TX