Some refreshments were provided and those in attendance seemed to enjoy the meeting in spite of the makeshift meeting place. Jeffrey is building a 10 GHz moonbounce system. Part of the system will consist of F1EHN tracking software and controller board for the dish motor activation. Jeffrey has selected US Digital absolute postion rotary encoders to read azimuth and elevation of the dish. The project consists of a PIC microcontroller that drives a RS 485 serial interface to the encoders.
Position is read and displayed on an LCD in degrees.
The position is also output to two 16-bit busses for the F1EHN controller board. After a period of mingling and swapping the meeting dispersed. They also hold the 144 GHz record of 2.3 miles. Bob Johnson, KF6KVG, and I have been working for the past six months on gear for 120 and 144 GHz. Both systems are based on Hughes harmonic mixers and 9 inch Cassegrain feed dishes.