On Saturday, 2010-10-23 13:49 +0200, N. Mahdinejad wrote:
Dear satellite operators. Is there any one? i dont recive any answer to my questions. help ma please. Which of amteur satellites have operatonal beacon downlink ?
Thanks for your attention. Best Regards.
Dear N.
Be more patient: the majority of subscribers to this group are probably from the North American continent. It is Saturday and their day is just beginning.
Preferably also start a new thread with a subject line that properly describes your issue. Under another topic people might just skip over your message without reading it. They may also be more inclined to respond to messages signed with a first/given name or an amateur radio callsign.
Regarding your question about beacons -- these pages are valuable references:
Live OSCAR Satellite Status Page http://oscar.dcarr.org/
Operational OSCAR Satellite Status Summary http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/satellites/status.php
Regarding your earlier question about where zero azimuth is -- I am not familiar with Unitrack but presume that it is similar to the Yaesu GS-232B controller box for the Yaesu G-5500 motor controller.
When mounting a rotator there are two angle references that must be related to each other in some way:
The first is the hardware read-out that will vary between the extremes of rotation, according to the mode selected. In the case of the GS-232B it runs from 180 through 360/0 to 180, or from 0 to 359, or from 0 to 450. It is a scale to measure the relative hardware rotation.
The second is the mathematical definition of direction, which is normally measured as an angle relative to true north, with clockwise being positive.
Your control software must have a setting to link a specific hardware read-out value to where the rotator/antenna actually points. The relative scale is thereby anchored to the mathematical definition of direction.
73 de ZR1CBC, Johann.