N1MM Rotor Control

Rotator control by N1MM logger is supported using

External software
- N1MM rotor (comes with N1MM logger)
- LP rotor (freeware by Larry Phipps - N8LP)
External hardware
- ARSWIN by EA4TX

The rotor can be controlled in several different ways:

Entry window:
- by entering a beam heading in the callsign field and press Alt+J. The rotor will turn to the entered beam heading.
  - Example:234 Alt+J will turn the rotor to 234 degrees.
  - The number must be numeric, >= 0 and <= 360.
- using the menu items in the Tools menu
  - Turn Rotor Alt+J - Turn rotor to bearing for the callsign in the Entry window.
  - Stop Rotor Ctrl+Alt+J - Stop turning the rotor when turning and no bearing in callsign field in Entry window.
- using the short cut keys below:
  - Alt+J - Turn rotor to bearing for the callsign in the Entry window or to the callsign in the callframe (when callsign field is empty).
  - Alt+L - Turn rotor to long path bearing for the callsign in the Entry window.
  - Ctrl+Alt+J - Stop turning the rotor when turning and no bearing in callsign field in Entry window.
Bandmap window: by right clicking on a spot and select: 'Turn Rotor'
Available Mult's and Q's window: by right clicking on a spot and select: 'Turn Rotor'

Some remarks

If there is a call of less than three characters in the callsign field in the Entry window nothing will happen.
The status bar will show the bearing it will turn to. Example: Turning Rotor to 123°
Normally the rotor will turn to the country bearing after a callsign is entered. This info comes from the country file and mostly is the center of the country. In grid square contests however that is mostly not practical so when a grid is entered the rotor will turn to the calculated bearing between the own grid and entered grid square.

N1MM Rotor Control

N1MM rotor has the ability to control up to 16 rotors per station, and to control rotors connected to other computers on your LAN. N1MM rotor leverages the Antenna tab to define what rotors are controlled when you are on a band. N1MM rotor can even rotate a stack with one command. N1MM rotor is an external program which can be used from within N1MM logger or as a stand-alone program.

Supported rotor types

DCU1 - No Stop button supported.
M2 Orion - Speed shown to bottom right of status bar.
Prosistel
AlfaSpid
Yaesu
RC2800P-A
Rotor-EZ
AlfaSpid ROT2
Prosistel C

All rotors except the DCU1 support position reporting.

Upper pane: The upper pane shows the selected rotor under Tools (as entered in the Setup under Tools) and behind the @ the current rotor position.
Menu bar: Shows the File, Tools and Help menus.

The big digits indicate the current rotor position. When an antenna offset has been entered this will be shown in small digitsto the right of the current rotor position.
More to the right a visual indication where the rotor is pointing.
The line in the circle can be dragged to turn the rotor for rotors that support position reporting.
The textbox is an entry field where to enter the bearing the rotor has to be turned to.
Pressing the Turn button will turn the rotor to the entered position and the Stop button will stop turning the rotor at the current position.
A reverse offset will be shown as (R) .

Status bar: Shows the speed when reported by the rotor.

The program will be brought to top when turning (unless minimized)

File Menu Selections

File

Always on Top - Select to have the program always on top.
Exit- Exit the program.

Tools
- Setup Rotors - a dialog named 'Rotor Setup' will be displayed as shown below.
- Set Current Antenna Offset
  - The offset is entered on the antennas tab of the configurer, or can be entered for the selected rotor. This offset is added to the rotor position to determine the antenna position. This is useful for antennas that are mounted at 90 degrees for pattern interference reasons, or for antennas that have simply turned some in the wind over the winter.
- Set Current Antenna Bidirectionality
  - Bidirectional is for dipoles, or SteppIr's where the user wants to reverse the antenna rather than turn it more than 180 degrees.
- Calibrate Rotor - Calbrate the rotor. Only when supported by the rotor like the M2 Orion.
- Prosistel C Config
- Set rotation limits

A new line for every setup rotor will be shown.
- Each line represents a rotor as entered in the Setup under Tools.

Help

Help - Show the help file for this window.
About - Gives the version of the N1MM rotor program.

Button and Mouse Assignments

Manual entry field - Type a heading and press Enter or the Turn button to turn the rotor. The entered number is in degrees.
- Maximum: 450 and minimum 0. An error message will appear when entered otherwise when pressing the Turn button.
Turn - Click to turn rotor to heading in textbox. Pressing Enter will also turn the rotor.
Stop Alt+S - Press to stop rotor turning. Pressing Alt-S or Escape will also stop turning the rotor.
- This button is only shown when the rotors supports this feature.
F1 - F10 - Pressing the F-keys mapped to the bearing buttons will turn the rotor to the position as shown on the button. Right click to set the heading value.

Bearing buttons (F1 - F10)
- Left mouse button click
  - Pressing one of the bearing buttons will turn the rotor to the position as shown on the button.
  - The F-keys F1 through F10 are mapped to the 10 bearing buttons.
- Right mouse button click
  - Set Button to Current Position
    - The heading as entered in the manual entry field will be used to set the position.
  - Set Button to a Specific Heading
    - A dialog will appear and a frequency can be entered which will used to set the position.

Only rotors that report position will be able to show the current position (also when rotating).

Using N1MM rotor stand-alone

Go into the N1MM program directory with Windows Explorer and find 'N1MMRotor.exe'. This is the N1MM rotor program. A shortcut on the desktop would be an easy way to start the program. All features mentioned above can be used.

Using N1MM rotor with the main N1MM logger program

Start by clicking setup in N1MM rotor and setting up your rotor at the right serial port by mapping the serial port to the main program.
N1MM logger will turn the rotor by sending UDP packets to the N1MM rotor program. The rotor selected will turn.
Both in the Configurer and in the Rotor Setup the Rotor Start Port /Starting UDP port# have to be the same.

To start N1MM rotor automatically from within N1MM logger you have to select in N1MM logger 'Start N1MM Rotor Program' in the Antennas tab of the Configurer.
The default UDP port is set to 12040 and can be changed atthe same Antennas tab in the Configurer (Starting UDP Port for Rotor Program).
In N1MM rotor set up the same UDP port under the menu itme 'Setup' in the Tools menu.

NB. As the rotor program can be on another computer this has to be set in both programs separately and identical.

One rotor setup This will be the way most users use the program, as they only have one rotor.
When you don't have antenna selections specified in the Antennas tab of the Configurer then just send the command to the selected rotor.

Multiple rotor setup
When more rotors have to be turned by the program then there is a need to map a rotor to an antenna (or antennas)
1. Setup the antenna selections in the Configurer; Tab: Antennas
2. Create a mapping between the 16 possible antennas and the 16 possible com ports for the selected IP-address of the rotor control.

	N1MM rotor setup dialog
	N1MM logger setup dialog for Antennas in the Configurer (Tab: Antennes) I.e. you relate a com port to a particular antenna. If you specify more than one com port, you will turn both.

N1MM rotor running on another computer

Let's assume that N1MM rotor, the rotor control program is on a separate computer which has IP address 192.168.1.14, and your computer running N1MM logger is 192.168.1.10.

Make sure N1MM Rotor is running on the computer that has the rotor connected to it.
Network the computers together.
Put this in your N1MM Logger.ini file:

[ExternalBroadcast]
DestinationIPs=127.0.0.1 192.168.n.m

ExternalBroadcast should already be there. If not, add it.

192.169.n.m should be your ip address for the machine that has the rotor control box connected to it.

Do not start the rotor program as it does not work on the computer which does not have the rotor connected directly.
Control the rotor by menus in the Tools menu. You put the direction or a callsign in the call textbox and press alt-j

Turning a Stack

In the example picture above at the right the stack is on Com3 and Com4 and are turned at the same time when turning antenna 4 (stack).
Enter 3,4 and the heading selected will be sent to the rotor program and it will tell the rotors (of whatever type) on com3 and com4 to turn to that azimuth. If you want to control a single antenna, you will have to switch to that single antenna using the antenna toggle in the main program, press ALT+j and then toggle to the set of antennas that you want.

Run time error: 126

Run time error 126 could be caused by a firewall that doesn't like a UDP message sent to 127.0.0.1 to notify the rotor program of what window is active. If you ever want to use the rotor program and without getting this error, you will need to figure out what program is causing this interference. First check your firewall. If that is not it, one user found that a program called "Port Explorer" was the cause. When that was closed, the problem went away.

Using external hardware or software

Rotor control is supported direct by the program for:

ARSWIN by EA4TX

LP rotor (freeware by Larry Phipps - N8LP)
See the links section for urls.

Start your ARSWIN or LP-Rotor software before pressing Alt+J, Alt+L or Ctrl-Alt+L.