Hi all,
question from a DL ham who doesn't have good English skills:
Are there still plans do add a rotator control interface? There's not much about this in the forum, only a comment from Petr, that he has it on his ToDo list. As far as I've read in some hamlib release information, there is a daemon for that.
And just a question from me:
What about the plans to add a "contest mode"?
For serious participations I still take Win-Test, which is the de facto standard program here in DL, especially in multi operator contests. But for the giving-out-points-on-sunday-morning in all those semi-important contests, it would be nice being able at least to give out serials. I was just thinking about this, because I've read that on the very same ToDo list, in which Petr mentioned the rotator control ;-)
73
Ulf DK5TX
Hello Ulf,
I could add rotator interface, hamlib has daemon for it. Problem is, I don't have any rotator at home, I can't test even basic function. Also don't have any idea how it should work with cqrlog. I'm sorry, I don't have any experience with it. If you or any one else could describe how it should work or even could do some tests, I could add rotator control support.
Contest mode is my nightmare. I already started to work on contest program for Linux based on CQRLOG source code but it seems I can't hadle it alone. To develop something similar to N1MM or WinTest will take years. Even basic contest program without scoring is a lot of work. I'd like to have it fully configurable, with SO2R support and very powerfull scoring system. It would be great if someone else could develop contest logging program in GTK/QT. I'm not sure if I can handle it.
73 Petr, OK2CQR
--
http://HamQTH.com/ok2cqr
https://ok2cqr.com
Hi Petr,
I got some information from the other ham.
hamlib-utils has a daemon called rotctld. The daemon is started from the command line with initial options like -m = rotator model number, -s = serial port speed etc. The interface on the serial port controls the rotator. Commands for the rotator are sent over the TCP socket, like set_pos = set position, get_pos = get position, stop = stop the rotator, park = park the antenna (as some rotators have an extra brake) and so on. There are also some locator commands. Basic information can be found here:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/en/man8/rotctld.8.html
Unfortunately I don't have an interface too, so I can't test it either.
Perhaps someone else can help out?!
About contest mode:
I can imagine that a contest logger is a big piece of work. As I mentioned before I was just curious if it is still on the ToDo list, but I don't mind if not.
I have a rotator, and will soon have a way for computer control.
I will definitely be able to test things. I also have 40 years of software development experience in a research environment, so can also help with code and/or debugging.
I can see two useful capabilities in cqrlog - a virtual control interface, showing position (maybe on xplanet plot) and with fill in of desired heading (either by compass or DX prefix), and tied into grabbing spots from a DX cluster and as part of setting station for attempting a contact rotating antenna as well as QSY of radio.
Darrel Van Buer, PhD
AK6I
I am thinking of purchasing a new rotator (my existing rotator is a manually controlled rotator) so I'd love to see this feature in CQRLog. There are many manufacturers standards to most popular of which appears to be as follows:
1. SPID
2. Orion M2
3. Hygain, DCU1 protocol
4. Yaesu, GS232 protocol.
5. Prosistel “D”
6. EasyComm I/II
There are others
I know that SPID are happy to to send the necessary information to the program authors to support their protocol, and I guess the others would too. Maybe we could set up a poll on this site to see what are the most popular rotators that CQRLog users own in an effort to provide Peter some guidance as to which protocols he shoud develop, as supporting all would be much more difficult although not impossible it seems, see http://www.ea4tx.com/.
EA4TX has developed universal rotator software called ARSVCOM. food for thought perhaps.
73'd De Dave, G8FXM O/S Linux Mint 18.1 KDE Plasma 64 bit g8fxm@uksmg.org
Looking at the EA4TX website there appears to be a Linux version of his software and HAM LIB support:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/hamlib/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/hamlib/index.php?title=Rotor_Speci...
Maybe HAM LIB is the way to go here ?
73'd De Dave, G8FXM O/S Linux Mint 18.1 KDE Plasma 64 bit g8fxm@uksmg.org
I would like to see it added. DCU-1 protocol is what I would need. The Green Heron controller uses this protocol. I know that hamlib does support it. I just have not had time time to look into it.
Still just use it like all of the others I have had ;-)
Will WC2L
AR-Cluster dxc.wc2l.cm
The model of the rotor shouldn't really matter to CQRlog if using hamlib. CQRlog would just have to send the azimuth position via the api to rotctld and that's it. It could be taken from the information that is displayed when entering the call sign as that already shows the azimuth. From there it would just be a button to add which would initate the turn.
Time to bust out the Pascal skills :)
Mike K5TRI
CQRlog work very fine and button short path works well.
Can you add button "Long path"?
73! Pawel