At 09:59 PM 3/6/02 -0800, Dave, AA6YQ wrote:
>The 2800 rotator controller circuit is, to be polite, a kludge. Besides
>serving as reference library for bad logic design, slight bends in the
>dial pointer assembly's electromechanical sensors can cause all manner
>of strange behavior. All that junk from the rotator motor driver back
>could be replaced by a an 805X microprocessor and a commodity LCD
>display -- at a fraction of the cost, not to mention radically-improved
>reliability and a "free" RS232 interface. I spent my early years
>designing and debugging commercial minicomputers, microprocessors, and
>associated peripheral interfaces, but never could get this "simple"
>rotator controller to operate reliably. I finally replaced it with an M2
>Orion, which has served flawlessly.
It is, however, important to note that the "A" series control boxes -- the
ones that use 6 wires rather than 5 -- are entirely different inside and
much simpler. Still no free RS-232 interface though.
73, Pete N4ZR
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