here's a guy who actually built a rotator with a digital magnetic compass
sensor for direction
http://www.kg4jjh.com/arc.html
"The Antenna Rotator Controller is unique in that it senses, displays, and
controls to the earth’s true magnetic field. The compass sensor, mounted in a
waterproof enclosure, is attached to the mast and sends its signal to a
microcontroller. The ARC can receive azimuth commands from its internal keypad,
MixW, or ARC VB (a custom grid square program) and will control many low cost
24V rotators to a level of precision not found in the original controllerThe
Antenna Rotator Controller is unique in that it senses, displays, and controls
to the earth’s true magnetic field. The compass sensor, mounted in a waterproof
enclosure, is attached to the mast and sends its signal to a microcontroller.
The ARC can receive azimuth commands from its internal keypad, MixW, or ARC VB
(a custom grid square program) and will control many low cost 24V rotators to a
level of precision not found in the original controller"
good detail there at his links
the compass sensor modules/chips are pretty cheap nowadays, with all the robot
etc stuff people do.
I was looking at some of the various chips, but I would think being able to
deal with 1500W nearby might interfere with these guys? At the very least, it's
a rough operating environment for them.
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