[amsat-bb] Re: Semi-remoting the controller for a Yaesu G5400

[Jim Walls]

Lowell White wrote:
> My Yaesu G-5400 rotor pair is about 150' from my shack. 
>
> I am wanting to gauge the feasibility of putting the rotor controller within
> 100' (due to on-hand control cable lengths) of the antennas (in a garage).
>
> I would then run a separate (on-hand) PC-controller cable (fewer conductors as
> using the DIN interface on the back of the controller) to the rotor controller
> box from a PC and adapter / interface (if needed) in my shack (approx. 50').
>
> Is it crazy to consider or should I just pony up for more of the (dual) rotor
> control cable and run the control box itself in my shack?
>
> What would I need to do at the PC end to appropriately 'signal' the
> 'semi-remote' control box.
>   

I am making an assumption, that may not be the case.  I am assuming that 
there is a protected location closer to the tower.  For example the 
tower is next to the garage and the shack is in the house.  If that is 
the case, what I would do is run the remote control PC at the remote 
location, and control it over your LAN with a remote desktop program 
such as VNC (http://www.realvnc.com/).  That does make the assumption 
that you have an extra PC floating around, but for most of us the 
question is not IF we have one, but rather which of of the several 
should I use...  It also assumes that you have a house LAN - although if 
you don't, most PCs these days have a network connection already built 
in so it would be easy to implement.

-- 
73
-------------------------------------
Jim Walls - K6CCC
jim at k6ccc.org
Ofc:  818-548-4804
http://home.earthlink.net/~k6ccc
AMSAT Member 32537 - WSWSS Member 395