Pablo has written a very nice software application, called ARSWIN, which has some hooks in it to allow software control to be accomplished by Stan's, W4MQ's, RemoteServer application and a number of other radio programs.
The rotator control unit is based on the ARS RCI-SE board from Pablo, EA4TX. It has been interfaced to a Kenpro KR-250, which is equivalent to the Yaesu G-250 light duty rotator. The Kenpro controller did not lend itself easily to interface with other systems, so with the help of Pablo, we designed and built a very basic rotator control unit, which can work in a manual (local) mode or through the computer. Pablo has been exceptionally helpful and responsive to questions throughout this process, which has been appreciated.The ARS RCI-SE board installed at VK3UR is an 8 bit version, which provides 255 steps in 1.4 degree increments, which is more than enough, given the antennas have about a 20 degree beamwidth, however higher resolution boards are available.
As the KR-250 rotator is suited for only light duty applications it is limited to an 11 element 2m yagi and a 15 element 70cm yagi with a 23 element 23cm yagi mounted in the middle of the 2m and 70cm yagis.
Pablo has written a very nice software application, called ARSWIN, which has some hooks in it to allow software control to be accomplished by Stan's, W4MQ's, RemoteServer application and a number of other radio programs.
The screen displayed only shows Azimuth control, however the ARSWIN application also supports Elevation control if a suitable Elevation rotator is available.
Rotator control is only visible through Stan's Web Transceiver application on 2m, 70cm and 23cm and can be changed by users (with Tx access) by clicking on the beam heading and entering a value between 0 and 360 degrees. When the Internet Remote Base has not been used for 2 minutes it will rotate the antennas to a bearing of 105 degrees (towards Melbourne) and park the antennas.
Beam Headings:
| Australian Cities and Towns | ||
|---|---|---|
| City / Town: | Bearing (Deg): | Distance (Km): |
| Adelaide (VK5) | 300 | 550 |
| Brisbane | 43 | 1450 |
| Canberra (VK1) | 64 | 560 |
| Darwin (VK8) | 329 | 3050 |
| Hobart (VK7) | 167 | 725 |
| Melbourne (VK3) | 105 | 100 |
| Perth (VK6) | 269 | 2650 |
| Sydney (VK2) | 62 | 770 |
| Almost Australian Cities and Towns | ||
| City / Town: | Bearing (Deg): | Distance (Km): |
| Wellington, NZ | 105 | 2620 |