[TowerTalk] Rotor-EZ

[Bob Boyd]

I appologize in advance for the bandwidth, but I need to clarify an
impression that I may have left based upon a posting that I made about a
month ago.  In that posting I was offering for sale a 'Rotor-EZ' kit
sold by Idion Press because I thought that it would not fit into my
HAM-IV rotor control box.  Unfortunately this impression was partly
caused by lack of clarity in the Rotor-EZ instructions and lack of
thinking on my part.  I ended up not selling the kit because so many of
you said "it will work".  This past weekend I completed the kit and wish
to offer the following which I made to the LogWindows reflector last
night:

Idiom Press offers a rotor control kit for the Ham-M and Tailtwister
rotor control boxes which provides for RS-232 control using the Hygain
DCU-1 protocol.  The kit is a well-designed circuit board with about 75
component parts; construction, installation, and calibration requires
about six hours, manual dexterity and soldering skills.  The RS-232
version of the kit is about $135 including shipping.  Refer to the
website: http://idiompress.com/rotor-ez.html for further details.

Yesterday I completed construction and installation of the Rotor-EZ in
my Ham-IV control box and then connected it to a serial COM port on the
computer.  Using my logging program, LogWindows, under Settings / Rotor,
I selected the Hygain DCU-1 protocol and the COM port.  I then selected
the last entry in my log, pressed the Antenna rotor button on the tool
bar, and the rotor swung the beam to the proper heading.  Selecting DX
spots from the DX cluster worked in the same manner.  Happiness reigned
here in the hamshack!

This control is a reasonably-priced addition to the Ham-M series of
rotor controls, especially when compared to the $620 pricetag of the
DCU-1 control.  I am not affiliated in anyway with Idiom Press who sells
the kit, but am a very satisfied customer.  I am an enthusiastic
supporter and beta-tester of LogWindows, and I'm happy to say that
LogWindows can now add another item to those which it supports!

By the way, my computer uses a ByteRunner 4-port serial card to provide
ports in addition to the basic two on the motherboard.  Those ports all
share the same IRQ and are at a higher than usual port address ($CC00 in
my case).  The rotor control, packet tnc, modem, and serial label
printer are all on that card.  LogWindows only cares about the COM port
number which is 8 for the rotor control.  The system uses dual-boot
Windows 98 SE or Windows 2000.  LogWindows works perfectly under either
operating system.

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