A few weeks ago I described a system to remotely monitor the direction
my antennas were pointing after the potentiometer in my Prosistel
PST-71D crapped out. It used 18 discrete Hall Effect switches, and
while it works fine it does seem like a bit of a clumsy approach even to
me and the resolution isn't ideal.
Csaba, HA3LN, saw my video and mentioned that he was working on a
similar project but using a rotary Hall Effect angle sensor. I liked
his idea a lot, but he plans to mechanically connect the sensor to the
rotator and I prefer to have a non-mechanically connected setup using
magnetic coupling. A video describing my latest approach can be found here:
https://youtu.be/2XbAxJ5nDBI
It's a simple and relatively inexpensive way to remotely monitor which
direction an antenna is pointed without needing a mechanical connection
to the mast holding the antenna. The resolution is pretty good,
certainly better than the beam width of almost any amateur radio
antenna. It uses a rotary Hall Effect angle sensor together with an
Arduino to convert the output of the sensor to degrees and display the
azimuth on a small OLED display. Magnetically linked wheels ("gears")
... one on the mast and another mounted nearby ... couple the mast
rotation to the rotary sensor. The software for the Arduino is extremely
simple, can be programmed from almost any computer via a USB connection,
and is available upon request. The items that were 3D printed were
created using OpenSCAD, but should probably be reworked for smaller
magnets and a smaller overall size.
Many thanks to Csaba, HA3LN for the suggestion to use the rotary Hall
Effect angle sensor, and to my son Scott for the code for the very
effective adaptive jitter filter.
As usual, any thoughts for improvement are appreciated.
73,
Dave AB7E
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