Hi John, N7JK

I don't know if the control box of your CDE HAM-IV is similar to my Tailtwister T2X but they should be similar.

Since I am interested on this matter I have made some measurements to see if my T2X is a suitable rotator or not for a future automatic tracking system of my antennas.

The above rotator has the wiper of a 500 ohm potentiometer mechanically coupled to the inside of the aluminum hood using a cogged copper-berillium spring to get it rotate by 360° when the hood rotates.

Unfortunately going back and forth the mechanical coupling became too loose because of the aluminum wear and a big backlash between the actual position of the antennas and the indicated azimuth creates an error that make the above mentioned system less suitable for precise tracking purposes using this type of rotators.

From the electrical point of view the wiper of the potentiometer is grounded

by the aluminum hood and cannot be insulated.

The negative terminal of milliamperometer ( I ) is connected to ground via a 5k calibrating pot. while the positive of it is connected to the positive of a power supply via a fixed 10 k resistor.

Terminal 3 of the 500 ohm potentiometer is connected to the positive and terminal 7 is connected to the negative of a stabilized voltage and both terminals 3 and 7 are insulated from the ground.

During operation when the wiper of the potentiometer is all the way to 3 the positive of the power supply is grounded and no current circulates in ( I )

When the wiper is all the way to 7 the negative of the power supply is grounded and the maximum positive voltage is available across ( I )

Connecting a voltmeter between the positive terminal 3 and the ground in 1 a positive voltage between 0 volt and about 13 volt is linearly available during 360° rotation.

If you need 5 volt for your Trakbox you should connect to terminal 3 a 5 k resistor in series to a 5k potentiometer in order to get 10 k across terminals 3 and 1 and get + 5 volts from the wiper and ground i.e. from the wiper and terminal 1

The system works but because of the above mentioned problem rotators like Yaesu and Ken-Pro are better for tracking purposes.

73" de

i8CVS Domenico

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Kopala" jkopala@gmail.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 12:11 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] TrakBox Interface to HAM-IV Azimuth Rotor

I am looking for a method to interface the TrakBox Azimuth Sense input to

the Azimuth indicator level from a CDE/Hy-Gain HAM-IV / CD-45-II Rotator.

It would seem that without a circuit to isolate the grounded return to the

control box meter the likelyhood of a ground loop occuring is high. The TrakBox expects an Azimuth indicator voltage to vary between 0 (its local DC ground level) and the positive reference voltage for the rotors.

I assume there are some TrakBox users using rotators other than the Yaesu

and Ken-Pro rotors who have encountered this problem and come up with a solution. There is no point in reinventing the wheel if there is already a suitable solution available that I can use.

I did receive a suggestion to use an op-amp to convert the level.

Any suggestions from TrakBox users?

John Kopala N7JK

---

Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb