[WriteLog] Writelog and Antenna Rotor Messaging

[Roger Rehr]

Writelog works fine with my Orion Rotors via a com port.

But for VHF contesting I have long used a homebrew rotor controller 
program that interfaces to whatever logging program I am using 
[RoverLog or N1MMLogger] using a DDE, so that I can quickly move the 
Orion rotor to any heading manually by either clicking on a degree valu 
or typing in a number, as well as by accepting the output from the 
logging programs that is based on the 'other' station's grid square.  I 
use this interface program because the rotor control functions in ANY 
logging program are just much too limited for optimal VHF Contesting, 
at least for me.  A picture is worth a thousand words in explaining 
what my little interface program does.

See http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz/TerrRotor.jpg for a picture of the 
program window.  What is does will be immediately obvious.

I am considering using WriteLog for VHF contesting if I can get some 
other things straightened out, and it looks like it uses the Windows 
Messaging API rather than the DDE to communicate with ARSWIN.  I used 
the ARSWIN DDE to interface my homebrew rotor program to N1MMLogger and 
RoverLog, so I need to modify my program to work with WriteLog and the 
Windows Messaging API.

I know that the ARSWIN windows handler has lpClassName "ThunderForm" 
and pCaption "ARSWIN", and that the lpClassName is "AZIMUTH" and that 
the two parameters that are passed are angle and rotor type.  So I need 
to write my code to fit this.  I believe that WriteLog is the client 
and "ARSWIN" is the server, but am not sure on this point.

Has anyone written any Visual Basic or C or other code to take the 
windows messages available from WriteLog and control a rotor in this 
manner?  I have not used the Windows Messaging API before and am not 
very smart, so even though I have been reading on the web and hacking 
my DDE-based code I haven't been successful at getting things to work 
using the Messaging API.  So I could use a jumpstart like looking at 
someone else's code for a similar application.

Thanks in advance, and

73,

W3SZ
Roger Rehr
http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz