I built a replacement position indicator for my ProSisTel PST-71D
rotator after the 10-turn potentiometer failed and I was to lazy to
bring the rotator down from the tower to replace it. The solution I
came up with isn't particularly elegant, but the idea might be useful to
somebody either as a backup or for some other similar purpose. The
components for this thing are very inexpensive ... literally less than
$20 for the electronics.
Even the software is simple ... this is literally the very first
software I have ever written for an Arduino and I have no prior C or C++
experience.
I built everything with through hole components on a DIY single sided PC
board, which is one of the reasons the size is pretty large. If
somebody was trying to minimize the size by using surface mount
components on a double-sided board in an optimized case they could do
MUCH better than I did. Even better, adding an ATTiny at the tower
would allow the use of the very inexpensive 2.4 GHz NRF24L01
transmitter/receiver pairs to eliminate all of the wires between the
tower and the shack except for the V+ and ground wires ... and a small
solar panel and battery would avoid even that.
https://youtu.be/y9R5XKCMZuU
I'm sure that there are better ways to do any of this, but I had my
reasons for doing it this way (one being that I didn't want a mechanical
linkage to the mast) and at least it does what I wanted.
73,
Dave AB7E
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