[amsat-bb] Re: Automated station using PERL

[Anthony Monteiro]

At 08:03 PM 1/1/2008, Andrew Rich wrote:
>I have made a script that asks predict where GO-32 is.
>
>It runs once a second.
>
>It works out if it has to turn off the battery charger and engage the radio.
>
>The script also uses a file to simulate rotator position (till I get the
>hardware setup).
>
>It makes a diciscion to turn on and off any of 8 relays, hanging off the
>parrallel port. (Power ON/OFF , Rotator CW/CCW)
>
>I figured I have to have some sort of computer controlling the rotators, so
>push the process control back to the PC instead of the outboard controller.
>
>In this case, any old A/D would do for the rotator sense.

Hi Andrew,

For what it is worth, you do not even need an A/D, just a cheap digital pot
(dual pot for Az/El) and 3 bits on a parallel port. You can use this idea to
run any type of motors. It is not fancy or sophisticated, but it is real cheap:

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

The included source code is for DOS but it would not be hard to make it work
under LINUX.

Best of luck with your projects and 73,
Tony AA2TX