I talked with Mosley about four or five years ago and they were not making
that talking rotor control box any longer due to parts not being available.
Howard #3, W A 9 Y B W
----- Original Message -----
From: "Oriano" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2015 8:17 PM
Subject: Re: Hex Beam and accessible rotor, part 3: making the Ham IV
accessible
>I gather that Pro Search owned by Mosley Electronics is no longer making
> the talking rotor controller. I had one of these back in the 1980s and it
> interfaced nicely to a Ham iv rotor. Unit had a nice keypad for entering
> the beam heading followed by a "go" button to start rotation. It was a
> stand-alone unit, no PC required.
>
> Oriano v e 7 d y z
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Jim Kutsch, KY2D
> Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2015 4:22 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Hex Beam and accessible rotor, part 3: making the Ham IV
> accessible
>
> This is part 3 of the description of my hex beam and accessible rotor. As
> I
> said at the end of part 2, I already had a Ham IV rotor from the 1980s. At
> that time, I had a custom synthetic speech board that spoke a three digit
> number to indicate the beam heading. A push button was added on the front
> of the control box just under the brake button. That button can be pushed
> with the thumb while other fingers operate the brake and clockwise or
> counter clockwise buttons. But, unfortunately, the external aluminum box
> with the speech circuit was lost in one of my many moves.
>
>
>
> Prior to the Ham IV, I had a few CDR rotors and before that an Alliance
> Tenna-rotor. These were very light duty rotors designed for TV antennas
> but
> work quite well for VHF and UHF beams. Both had either a large knob with a
> tactile line on it or had a large arrow for the knob. Spin the knob to the
> desired heading and he indicator moved in discrete "ker-chunks" until the
> antenna heading matched the direction of the knob. These were great for
> blind operators.
>
>
>
> With all that as background and also considering that I had not used any
> kind of rotor at all since 1990, I set out to see what was new for those
> of
> us who can't see the rotor indicator. I found some references to rotors
> for
> blind hams in Norm's Rotor Service and on Handi-hams. I also read about
> several list members taking the glass cover off the indicator on Yeasu
> rotors and using them successfully. But, I also found a lot of references
> to computer control and driving the rotor control from logging programs.
> Since I was trying to catch up on 25 years of missed experience with the
> technical progress of accessible rotors, and rotors in general for that
> matter, I became very interested in the PC control.
>
>
>
> I found Easy-Rotor-Control at http://easy-rotor-control.com/ in Germany.
> They have computer interface boards for over 90 rotors, including my old
> Ham IV. The rotor control is available in RS232 or USB. Some rotors
> require
> additional interface boards but they are available on the same website.
> The
> Easy Rotor Control, called ERC, is only available in kit form. The USB
> version I bought cost 79 Euros. It can be installed inside the rotor
> control box or in an external box if there isn't enough room inside the
> rotor box.
>
>
>
> The kit building isn't very complicated. It's 3 relays, some integrated
> circuit chips, and a few discrete components. Although I built many kits
> before losing my sight, I am not a printed circuit kit builder any more. I
> had help from a local ham who built the kit and installed it in my rotor
> control box. He said it only took a couple of hours and most of that was
> drilling holes in the Ham IV control box to mount the ERC and allow access
> to the USB and power connectors. The ERC does require a source of 12 VDC
> which isn't available in my rotor so I connect it to my shack 12 Volt
> supply. Basically, except for the mounting screws, the only connection to
> the rotor controls are wires to the brake, clockwise, and
> counter-clockwise
> buttons and to the feedback wires from the rotor that indicate its
> direction.
>
>
>
> With the ERC installed and connected by USB to a PC, the next step was
> calibration. Again, sighted help was necessary for this part. Calibration
> involves moving the rotor to certain headings as requested by the
> software.
> It records the rotor feedback value for every 30 degrees of rotation. Once
> calibrated, the rotor can then be controlled from the PC. Using
> Easy-Rotor-Control's "Rotor-Control" software, the user can enter an
> antenna heading in an edit box and press enter on the "go" button and the
> rotor will move to that heading. There is also a place on the screen where
> it displays the current heading. It requires using the Jaws curser to find
> it or reading the entire screen but a Jaws script could be written to read
> that screen area. I didn't do so because I don't use the ERC software,
> only
> the hardware.
>
>
>
> I wanted more than manual rotor control from my PC. I wanted an automatic
> interface with my logging software. I use ACLog. It was already interfaced
> with my Elecraft KX3 for reading band, mode, and frequency and placing
> that
> in the log. It also runs a DX spotting window with voice announcement of
> any needed countries that are spotted. after moving to the DX spot window
> and arrowing down to the station I want to work, pressing enter will place
> that station's call sign in the log and will move the KX3 to the band,
> mode, and frequency where the station was spotted. This is all very
> helpful
> in chasing that needed DX entity. But, the beam still needs to be moved to
> point to the correct heading. By the way, ACLog does calculate the beam
> heading and display it in the DX spot window, along with the distance to
> that station.
> However, the formatting is inconvenient for reading by Jaws and the miles
> and beam heading are read as a single string of numbers.
>
>
>
> So going back to more internet research, I found "PST Rotator software for
> antenna rotators" at http://www.qsl.net/yo3dmu/index_Page346.htm
>
>
>
> This software costs 20 Euros to license. It creates a bridge between
> logging programs and computerized rotor controls. If your rotor already
> has
> a PC interface, all you really need is this package to interface your
> logging software with your rotor. In my case, I first had to add PC
> control
> to the old Ham IV but many newer rotors already have a computer interface.
> The PST Rotator software interfaces with many, many logging packages,
> including ACLog which, as stated earlier, is what I use. Once PST Rotator
> is configured to know what logger and what rotor interface is being used,
> everything becomes automatic. When a call sign is entered in the logging
> package (either manually or because it was selected in the DX spot window,
> PST Rotator calculates the antenna heading and moves the antenna to that
> heading. Although you seldom need to go to it, if you switch over to the
> PST Rotator window, you can select short path or long path and you can
> enter headings manually in an edit box. Also, the author has a feature for
> blind operators. If you press control+b, the current beam heading is read
> aloud through Microsoft SAPI speech. This is helpful if you want to
> "watch" the beam turn by repeated pressing of control+b.
>
>
>
> PST Rotator is even further automated if you wish to take advantage of the
> features. It can be configured to automatically start the program when
> your
> logging software is started and to exit when your logging software is
> closed.
>
>
>
> So far, I'm very pleased with the combination of ACLog, the old Ham IV,
> Easy-Rotor-Control, and PST Rotator. The only issue I have is that I
> haven't managed to calibrate the counterclockwise end stop correctly. I
> can't turn the beam further North than 5 degrees and if something between
> 0
> and 5 is requested from the software, the rotor continues to try to turn
> past it's endpoint. This could cause damage so I have to be careful and
> listen to the ERC relays. If they don't drop out, I have to override any
> software requested heading between 0 and 5 with something 6 or higher. I'm
> sure this can be resolved. I just haven't found the magic incantation yet.
>
>
>
> Finally, there are probably way easier ways of doing what I did but, for
> me, figuring something like this out is a big part of the fun of ham
> radio.
> Integration of Hardware systems with software systems and seeking
> accessibility can be really fun. In cases like this, Google is your
> friend.
> There's an amazing amount of information on the internet if one just takes
> the time to look and to sort out the junk from the treasures.
>
>
>
> Have fun and good DX.
>
>
>
> 73, Jim, KY2D
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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