View Single Post
Old 13th Oct 2018, 8:32 pm   #18
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,560
Default Re: Poor Man's Rotator Using a Stepper Motor?

Quote:
Originally Posted by dseymo1 View Post
Wherever the mast is mounted, the camera could be arranged to see a compass rose mounted in a static location (see 'The Martian'...).
I considered that, but also realised the inside of a loft would usually be rather dark, so you'd need to strap an adapted LED torch to the boom as well, after which further modification the simplicity of a simple feedback pot would start to look increasingly attractive... (Unless you used a camera with a built in IR LED illuminator ring).

For an outside mounted beam with a good view over the rooftops I would assume the operator would have some idea of which visible features lay to the north, east, south and west of their location. This would probably apply even at night as long as there was some streetlighting / other lighting in the general area.

At least one past ICOM mobile amateur radio with a large display screen had the ability to act as a video monitor, possibly with a view to using it as a monitor for ATV, or as a reversing camera monitor.
SiriusHardware is offline