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of the connecting cable can be seen below. Before switching the unit on connect together pin 9, 10, 11 in the
PC-connector. In case of serial port put a short circuit to P7. When everything is all right, then a number will
appear on the display which is between +16 and -16 both as azimuth and as elevation. If not, we must have
done something wrong on the PCB of the display or we did not connect the main board and the display prop-
erly. Adjust zero value by P3 and P4 variable resistors. (Now we do not take into account the real position of
the antenna.) Cut the short circuit. Then values will appear on the display according to the position of the an-
tenna. Turn the antenna into default position. The display will show 0 and 180 respectively. Now check the
direction of the antenna optically. Mark this direction as precisely as we can. Turn around the antenna to point
into the same direction as in default position. Now adjust 180 degrees azimuth by P2 again. Then we will have
finished horizontal adjustments. In the vertical plane the procedure is the same but the display must show 0 in
default position and 180 in the end position (P1). We will than have basic adjustments finished. If the antenna
does not point to the direction shown on the display we can correct shifts by variable resistors P3 and P4.
Final notes
This interface has been built for Yaesu rotators but there is no reason not to use it with rotators of other makes.
The single condition is that there must not appear higher voltage than 5V on analog input and the relay used in
the rotator must not consume more power than the transistors can withstand without failure. Of course their
power rating can be properly chosen according to the requirements hence they can be different to those on the
circuit diagrams. The aforementioned software can be obtained freely on the Internet.
WXTRACK
http://www.satsignal.net
, FODTRACK –
http://qsl.net/xq2fod
The content of PIC16F870 can be found in ZIP-file
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