Well, here’s one @Syed was testing with
ZINWELL PLL LNB ZK-PF1G LN-139210 11.7 GHZ - 12.2 Ghz KU BAND VSAT
–Konrad, WA4OSH
We were able to receive with the Zinwell with no feed horn. Both LNB have similar performance specs.
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After two years I finally got my dreamcatcher…
So I’m again building the antenna, I have signal from my balcony… ( with a big building blocking it so there is hope…).
Here are the updates:
- stabilizes correctly for azimuth and elevation
- gps unit to calculate azimuth, elevation, skew based in gps position and sat long. (It also calculates magnetic declination).
- ftp server to upload via WiFi calibration/ configuration files and declination tables.
- added serial menu to fine tuning orientation
ISSUES/upgrades:
- little iron distortion in one axis ( I can live with it for a while).
- rssi feedback from dreamcatcher?. …
- add skew to the equation. (Motor… etc…).
- web server instead of ftp.
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Wow! Looks good.
Regarding tuner status… I do the following in a bash script on a remote (non DC) linux computer:
x=$(curl -s -L -c /tmp/cookies -b /tmp/cookies -XPOST -d'{"application": "ApplicationTuner", "path": "skylark/Tuner", "method": "getOnddStatus2", "arguments": null}' "http://192.168.1.115/API/application" | grep snr|awk '{print $2}' | sed s/,// )
echo $x
where 192.168.1.115 is the IP address of my DC.
You can grep for rssi vs snr, and otherwise use the same code snippet. My understanding is that you’ll probably get more meaningful results using ‘snr’ when trying to servo the antenna position rather than ‘rssi’.
Credit goes to @sv_sigint for reverse-engineering the API entry-points
That sounds good… thank you
It can be a turn around method…
The idea was to get some input directly in the antenna circuit so it can fine tuning orientation by itself… for now it has commands for it… I may do a webapp or something similar to integrate your script and send the commands to the antenna to fine tune orientation… In the past user nbkhwjm gave me some useful code and told me he was using a signal strength circuit… Not sure how to build one for ku band… I will investigate it…
totally open for suggestions…
That is really slick. How much was all of the mechanical gear?
Hi Syed… That’s coming from an old KVH 25…
I’m 3d printing the skew part… In theory it will look like this…
I’ll keep you informed about the progress
Well done. Very interesting.
Thanks Seasalt… still a lot to do but moving forward… Tested it on a boat in a marina and it got lock right away…
I received my 3D print today… now I have to modify the circuit to handle the new motor. This is how it looks now.
What about when sailing?