My team is using the hamlib library to control our antenna rotator,
connected to a large UHF antenna.
Recently I've been having strange behavior where, once the connection is
opened with the rotator, I am able to send ONE command to adjust Azimuth
and Elevation; after this first command, no more can be sent until the
connection is closed and reopened. Clearly this is an issue for actually
tracking satellites. The connection with the rotator is opened using the
following command:
sudo rotctld -m 901 -r /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 9600 -t 4533
Also with rotctl (non daemonized).
I've swapped out the computers connected to the rotator, so it's not the
fault of our computer.
Seems like maybe some command buffer isn't being cleared, if anyone has any
thoughts as to how to debug, it would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Andrew R. Rooney
Software Team Co-Lead | AlbertaSat
Computer Engineering | University of Alberta
Ph: +1(587) 778-5554
I see you're using the SPID backend which I'm not familiar with.
This likely isn't the cause of your problem, but you shouldn't need to use "sudo" to run any of the rotclt commands. Doing so will require adding your username to the "dialout" group of Debian or its derivatives (Ubuntu etc.) which can be done with the command:
sudo usermod -aG dialout username
Log out and then back in and the 'groups' command should show dialout as one of your user's groups. Other distributions may put the ttyUSB0 device in another group. you can use the command:
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0
to see the group. On my Debian machine it returns:
Again, that is not likely to be the underlying issue, but I think it is more secure to do it this way as none of the Hamlib utilities are considered secure and thus runnign with root privileges is discouraged.
73, Nate
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Anfrew, your issue will likely get more exposure on the mailing list than here. I know I don't check here unless I get an email from SF with the posting.
73, Nate
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Greetings,
My team is using the hamlib library to control our antenna rotator,
connected to a large UHF antenna.
Recently I've been having strange behavior where, once the connection is
opened with the rotator, I am able to send ONE command to adjust Azimuth
and Elevation; after this first command, no more can be sent until the
connection is closed and reopened. Clearly this is an issue for actually
tracking satellites. The connection with the rotator is opened using the
following command:
sudo rotctld -m 901 -r /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 9600 -t 4533
Also with rotctl (non daemonized).
I've swapped out the computers connected to the rotator, so it's not the
fault of our computer.
Seems like maybe some command buffer isn't being cleared, if anyone has any
thoughts as to how to debug, it would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Andrew R. Rooney
Software Team Co-Lead | AlbertaSat
Computer Engineering | University of Alberta
Ph: +1(587) 778-5554
Hi Andrew.
I see you're using the SPID backend which I'm not familiar with.
This likely isn't the cause of your problem, but you shouldn't need to use "sudo" to run any of the rotclt commands. Doing so will require adding your username to the "dialout" group of Debian or its derivatives (Ubuntu etc.) which can be done with the command:
sudo usermod -aG dialout usernameLog out and then back in and the 'groups' command should show dialout as one of your user's groups. Other distributions may put the ttyUSB0 device in another group. you can use the command:
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0to see the group. On my Debian machine it returns:
Again, that is not likely to be the underlying issue, but I think it is more secure to do it this way as none of the Hamlib utilities are considered secure and thus runnign with root privileges is discouraged.
73, Nate
Thanks for that Nate!
Do you think it could be a firmware problem, related to this? https://www.la1k.no/2018/03/21/hamlib-driver-for-spid-md-01-and-md-02/
In which case I would probably just need a firmware upgrade to 3.2 (which I see is released by you)
Still having the problem - if anyone has ideas it would be greatly appreciated.
Last edit: Andrew Rooney 2019-09-21
Anfrew, your issue will likely get more exposure on the mailing list than here. I know I don't check here unless I get an email from SF with the posting.
73, Nate