On Tue, December 18, 2018 3:25 pm, Wilson Lamb wrote:
> All that big rotator stuff is more work than I would do.
> However, If I were doing it and had long runs I'd look into using 120V for
> the long runs, with appropriate transformers at the ends. I can even
> imagine using one run to a tower and then relays to distribute it to
> various rotators. Overcoming cable drop by increasing gauge gets expensive
> quickly. I HAVE used long low voltage runs for other purposes.
> In those cases I used a power supply with plenty of headroom and remote
> sensing. It worked well and assured proper voltage at the remote device
> under all operating conditions (of current requirement) WL
<snip>
I've always thought that the future of rotors was that we feed power up
the tower, and use say TCP/IP to the rotor, and put the brains up there.
Before Phillips co-opted the Zigbee standard, I thought that Zigbee would
be a good way to get the command up the tower
I mean, at how low the prices are for embedded controllers (face it, a
ATMega - the chip in a Uno is under $2) Wouldn't it just be nice to
calibrate the rotor once, then be able to tell it "Hey, turn 315 degs",
and it does it, no muss, no fuss
If the ARRL really wanted to be proactive with the hobby, they should get
together with RSGB and JARL (and the others) and promulgate a standard for
TCP/IP control of devices
"Hey, rotor, do this", hey amp, do that, hey antenna switch, do the other"
Do the Mfgs HAVE to follow it? Nope. But I'd bet if the ARRL/JARL and
RSGB all got together and agreed on a standard, you'd see some falling in
line
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