Welcome to my rotor project!
January 21, 2007
I’ve decided to give amateur satellite work a serious go and decided to try and tackle building my own azimuth / elevation rotor. It’s essentially a rotor that can move in the horizontal (azimuth) as well as the vertical (elevation) plane. Then, I plan to build a computer controller for the rotor.
The end result will be a rotor that will take commands from a software program that knows the position of the satellites I want to work. The program will automatically position the antenna to follow a satellite’s path in the sky as it goes over. The same program will control my radio frequencies to compensate for the doppler shift associated with a satellite going over so fast.
Groovy stuff…
October 26th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Hi Paul
I ripped apart an old rotor and salvaged the motor. It looks like the one you have in the photo “02b_rotor_motor.jpg”. I’m investigating CNC at the moment. Did you happen to find out exactly what kind of motor is in the control box? It may be something worth investigating.
One type of AC motor can be turned into a stepper with only a little work. It would be nice to find if this will or it is just a small induction motor.
Rex Welsh