Re: [Hamlib-developer] Hamlib-developer Digest, Vol 29, Issue 11

[Andrej F. <an...@fa...>]

Hello,

> The ham radio rotors will be overkill for your application.  The classic
> Alliance U110 rotor had been a favorite for elevation control of ham radio
> satellite antennas since a mast could got through it.  I'm sure someone
> interfaced it to a Kansas City Tracker borad or some such years back, but
> whether that is RS-232 or Hamlib controllable, I don't know.

It seems that Kansas City Tracker needs an ISA slot, which would make
it obsolete even for desktop PC use, not to mention laptops...

> I would think that a TV rotor that is RS-232 controllable would be sought by
> users of MythTV and other DVR projects to allow complete control of TV
> capture.  I know that if I lived in the country I'd be looking for such a
> unit.

Researched DVR project, seems they use only IR contolable rotators via
LIRC, as they can pre-program them for particular transmitters. Which
is OK for them, but not for me. I have the feeling they are doing it
this way only because there is no solution for controlling rotators
directly from a Linux in a reasonable price range (For example, they
cannot use rotator to auto-locate a TV transmitter based on signal
level reading, which would be logical - and much requested - behavior)

In general, it seems that computer controllable rotators fall in two categories:

- Heavy-duty, 1000 $ and up, and
- Extra Heavy-duty, 2000$ and up.

> If you poke around ham radio satellite forums and lists, you may find someone
> has devised a hardware combo that may fit your need.  If we don't have
> support for such a device, we can certainly add it.

The only "simple" interface that can be used with a laptop (using
parallel to USB adapter) is
http://www.ea4tx.com/products/ars.htm at incredible 110 Euros. And it
has no Linux drivers (they where "abandoned" with an exclamation mark)
so it's useless to me anyway.

Seems that this is the only remotely reasonable solution in my case:

http://wk4r.com/rotor

Looks like it should work with most basic TV rotators (Such as
http://www.starkelectronic.com/cmmatv.htm
or
http://www.radioparts.com.au/ProdView.aspx?popup=1&Category=SXCC4015&Product=00903501&ProdDesc=AR300XC+AUTOMATIC+ANTENNA+ROTATOR
)

BUT - can it be made to work with HamLib?

Your help is very much appreciated.

Regards,
Andrej Falout


> 73, de Nate >>
>
> --
>
> "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
> possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."
>
> Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://n0nb.us/index.html
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:13:49 -0600
> From: Nate Bargmann <n0...@bl...>
> Subject: Re: [Hamlib-developer] RIGblaster plug&play with Icom 706MkII
> To: ham...@li...
> Message-ID: <200...@bl...>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="utf-8"
>
> On Saturday 22 November 2008 10:31:18 Robert Withrow wrote:
>> [My second try at posting via GMane.  If this is a duplicate, my
>> apologies...]
>>
>> I'm trying to use a RIGblaster plug&play to control an Icom 706MkII and my
>> experience mostly duplicates
>> http://blog.eksfiles.net/2008/01/06/rigblaster-plug-play-in-ubuntu-710/.
>
> Someone else has asked about it and I'm not sure, if any debugging we can help
> with.  Does it appear as a TTY port?
>
>> Grig mostly seems to work if I specify
>> ?set-conf=rts_state=OFF,dtr_state=OFF when starting it.  Fldigi doesn't
>> seem to work at all for controlling the radio via CI-V.
>>
>> The 706MkII support in Hamlib seems a little thin comparied to the
>> capabilities listed in the manual.  Maybe I just need to add more support
>> to the code?
>
> That would be welcome.
>
>> I know almost nothing about Hamlib, but I can code: so all suggestions
>> welcome.
>
> Code away and post your patches to this list.  It's best if they are against
> the current CVS, but we can take patches against earlier releases as well.  I
> mostly troll the Yaesu backends, but I've applied patches for others as
> well.  :-)
>
> 73, de Nate >>
>
> --
>
> "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
> possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."
>
> Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://n0nb.us/index.html
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:39:52 +1100
> From: "Michael Van Den Acker" <mik...@rm...>
> Subject: [Hamlib-developer] radio testing
> To: <ham...@li...>
> Message-ID: <492...@em...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Hi,
> I would like to help with radio testing.
> I have both the AOR AR5000A and the AOR AR8000 radios.
> How can I go about testing for you?
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:36:25 +1100
> From: "Michael Van Den Acker" <mik...@rm...>
> Subject: [Hamlib-developer] Rohde & Schwarz EB200
> To: <ham...@li...>
> Message-ID: <492...@em...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Hi,
> I can supply a copy of the R&S EB200 receiver manual if you are interested.
> Please let me know how you would like to pick it up. It is about 20Mb and in English.
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 03:46:25 -0900
> From: Roger <ro...@sd...>
> Subject: Re: [Hamlib-developer] radio testing
> To: Michael Van Den Acker <mik...@rm...>
> Cc: ham...@li...
> Message-ID: <122...@lo...>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> Download a recent cvs version (or just a recent release or snapshot) and
> read the README.* files in the top folder.
>
> Testing is well documented there.
>
> On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 14:39 +1100, Michael Van Den Acker wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I would like to help with radio testing.
>> I have both the AOR AR5000A and the AOR AR8000 radios.
>> How can I go about testing for you?
>> Michael
>>
>>
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> --
> Roger
> http://rogerx.freeshell.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
> Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes
> Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
> http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> End of Hamlib-developer Digest, Vol 29, Issue 11
> ************************************************
>



-- 
Andrej Falout
NZ: +64 (21) 2800 206 AU: +61 (410) 463 735 US: +1 (360) 488 0970