SATNOGS_ROT_THRESHOLD <1 deg for S-Band

SatNOGS Software
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Hello together!

I am trying to get our new S-Band ground station (FHWN S-Band) up in testing mode soon. For a frequency range of 2.4 - 2.45 GHz we are aiming on a rotator resolution of 0.2°.

Unfortunately, the SatNOGS Client only supports integer numbers for the rotator threshold (SATNOGS_ROT_THRESHOLD) within the rotator settings. This was sufficient, for our UHF ground station, but not for S-Band communication.

Exists there a solution to use the SatNOGS Client for antenna tracking with a rotator threshold <1° (float numbers)?

Some information about our RX S-Band setup:

  • 4.5m parabolic dish with LHCP helix dish feed (2.4 - 2.45 GHz)
  • SPIG BIG RAS/HR rotator with 0.1° resolution, controlled with a SPID MD-01 controller (Rot2Prog)
  • SatNOGS Client running on a RaspberryPi 4
  • SDR: ADALM PlutoSDR

Many thanks!

Cheers,
Alex, oe3ala

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While its probably not the best solution. Looking thru the satnogs-client code base it seems as if it would work fine with a float. Only thing stopping it is satnogsclient/settings.py · master · librespacefoundation / SatNOGS / satnogs-client · GitLab which cast it to a int when reading the config.

Hamlib’s rotctl which is used for positioning the rotator supports floats for the elevation and azimuth. So in theory if you modify your local source you should be able to change that int() call to a float() call and then enter a float.

This is just my quick little look at the issue.

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It works fine now! Thanks!