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feat(sat): follow the azimuth only

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A satellite tracker that insists on an elevation motor is a tracker switched off
for nearly everybody. A pass at the edge of the footprint — which is most of
them — never climbs above ten or fifteen degrees for its whole length, and a
yagi's beamwidth swallows that: the bearing alone is enough, and it is how most
stations that work satellites are actually built. The same switch rescues an
az/el station whose elevation motor has failed.

So it is an option, not a silent fallback, because it does cost something: a
bird straight overhead is a moving azimuth and a bearing that means nothing, and
whether to accept that is the operator's call. With it on, any rotor in the list
can be chosen — the PstRotator, the Rotator Genius, the ARCO, the tower already
turned for HF.

That works because the per-backend command dispatch moved out of the three
RotatorGoTo/Stop/Heading methods into linkGoTo/linkStop/linkHeading, so the
satellite tracker drives any of the seven backends through the same code the
compass uses instead of a second implementation of each. GetRotatorHeading loses
sixty lines of near-duplicate switch in the process, and a rotor with no
elevation axis now says so (HasElevation) rather than reporting a zero that
looks like a real bearing.

One trap, with a test on it: the step check compared both axes, so with the
elevation never commanded its difference stayed above the step for the whole
pass and every tick ordered the antenna to the bearing it was already on. A mast
has a finite number of turns in it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
This commit is contained in:
rouggy
2026-09-09 11:35:23 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 8f17416eca
commit b15055ba4a
10 changed files with 337 additions and 160 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files
app_sat.go
+26 -10
View File
@@ -40,10 +40,12 @@ const (
// flattenRotors gives it. How to reach it is that list's business, not
// this page's: describing one mast in two places is how a station ends up
// working on HF and not on a pass.
keySatRotID = "sat.rot_id"
keySatRotMinEl = "sat.rot_min_el" // don't drive the rotator below this elevation
keySatRotStep = "sat.rot_step" // degrees of change worth a command
keySatRotPark = "sat.rot_park" // park at az 0 / el 0 when tracking stops
keySatRotID = "sat.rot_id"
// Follow the azimuth and leave the elevation alone. See SatSettings.RotAzOnly.
keySatRotAzOnly = "sat.rot_az_only"
keySatRotMinEl = "sat.rot_min_el" // don't drive the rotator below this elevation
keySatRotStep = "sat.rot_step" // degrees of change worth a command
keySatRotPark = "sat.rot_park" // park at az 0 / el 0 when tracking stops
// The satellite page used to configure its own EasyComm or PstRotator link.
// These keys are read once by migrateSatRotator, which turns what they hold
@@ -86,11 +88,23 @@ type SatSettings struct {
// business and means nothing to a rotor turned by hand: below which
// elevation not to bother, how far the antenna must be off before a command
// is worth sending, and whether to park at the end.
RotOn bool `json:"rot_on"`
RotID string `json:"rot_id"`
RotMinEl int `json:"rot_min_el"`
RotStep int `json:"rot_step"`
RotPark bool `json:"rot_park"`
RotOn bool `json:"rot_on"`
RotID string `json:"rot_id"`
// RotAzOnly follows the satellite in azimuth and leaves the elevation
// alone — which is how most stations that work satellites actually do it.
//
// A pass at the far edge of the footprint never climbs above ten or fifteen
// degrees, and a beam on a plain azimuth rotator points straight through it:
// the beamwidth covers the whole thing. Refusing to track for want of an
// elevation motor turned the feature off for every operator who has a tower
// and no az/el mast, which is nearly all of them.
//
// It also rescues an az/el station whose elevation motor has failed, and it
// is why the rotor list stops being filtered when this is set.
RotAzOnly bool `json:"rot_az_only"`
RotMinEl int `json:"rot_min_el"`
RotStep int `json:"rot_step"`
RotPark bool `json:"rot_park"`
}
// SatTransponder is one path through a satellite, as the UI needs it.
@@ -260,12 +274,13 @@ func (a *App) satSettings() SatSettings {
}
m, err := a.settings.GetMany(a.ctx,
keySatFavorites, keySatMinEl, keySatWindowH, keySatAutoTLE, keySatGrid, keySatAltM,
keySatRotOn, keySatRotID, keySatRotMinEl, keySatRotStep, keySatRotPark)
keySatRotOn, keySatRotID, keySatRotAzOnly, keySatRotMinEl, keySatRotStep, keySatRotPark)
if err != nil {
return out
}
out.RotOn = m[keySatRotOn] == "1"
out.RotID = strings.TrimSpace(m[keySatRotID])
out.RotAzOnly = m[keySatRotAzOnly] == "1"
if v, err := strconv.Atoi(m[keySatRotMinEl]); err == nil && v >= -10 && v <= 30 {
out.RotMinEl = v
}
@@ -335,6 +350,7 @@ func (a *App) SaveSatSettings(s SatSettings) error {
keySatAltM: strconv.Itoa(s.AltM),
keySatRotOn: boolStr(s.RotOn),
keySatRotID: strings.TrimSpace(s.RotID),
keySatRotAzOnly: boolStr(s.RotAzOnly),
keySatRotMinEl: strconv.Itoa(s.RotMinEl),
keySatRotStep: strconv.Itoa(s.RotStep),
keySatRotPark: boolStr(s.RotPark),