Maps and Antennas

Maps and Antennas

Main view

The Main view is a configurable grid of panes — up to 2 rows by 5 columns — set per profile in Settings → General → Main view. The dividers are draggable (double-click one to even that row or column out), and every cell takes its own pane:

the great-circle map, the locator (street) map, the FT decodes map, the propagation (MUF) map, the cluster grid, the worked-before grid, recent QSOs, the watch list, the FT decodes list, the FlexRadio controls, the Icom, Yaesu, Elecraft/Kenwood, SunSDR (TCI) or remote console, or the Net control panel.

Empty cells close up: ask for 2 × 3 and fill four panes and you get 2 × 2 rather than two dead quarters of screen.

Named layouts

An arrangement can be named and switched from the status bar — an "FT8" that fills the screen with decodes and the cluster, an "SSB" with the map and the worked-before grid. A layout holds which pane is in each cell, the grid, and where the dividers sit; nothing else, so the station, the logbook and the settings are untouched by switching.

A dot on the chip means the view has been changed since that layout was saved, and the arrow beside a layout overwrites it with what is on screen.

Great-circle map

• Short/long-path distance & azimuth to the worked station.
• Selectable, key-free basemaps: Light / Voyager / Street / Satellite.
• The antenna beam lobe(s) are drawn from the rotor azimuth.
• Day/night terminator and twilight band (button at the top right).

Locator (street) map

An OSM street map centred on the contacted grid square — handy for local / portable contacts. No API key.

Rotators

An azimuthal-equidistant click-to-turn compass; the current heading and target are shown. The needle follows a turning antenna smoothly — OpsLog polls faster while the position is changing and backs off once it is parked.

Two rotors can be configured (two towers, or a Rotator Genius driving two). A Rotor 1 / 2 selector appears on the compass; OpsLog turns and displays the one you pick.

Types (Settings → Rotator)

Every rotator interface is configured here, once — including the az/el ones a satellite pass needs. The satellite page does not configure a rotator; it picks one of these.

Type	Axes	Connection	Notes
PstRotator	Az, or Az + El	UDP	Enable PstRotator's UDP listener (Setup → Communication → UDP). Tick This rotator has an elevation axis if the mast behind PstRotator has one — PstRotator itself will forward elevation to a rotor that cannot use it.
Rotator Genius (4O3A)	Az	TCP, port 9006	Native. Rotator # picks which of the two the box drives; Two rotors adds the second as its own rotor.
GS-232 azimuth (microHAM ARCO, ERC)	Az	LAN or USB	Set the controller's CONTROL PROTOCOL to Yaesu GS-232A. An ERC must be in GS-232 emulation, not Hy-Gain DCU-1.
ERC-M by DF9GR	Az + El	USB COM or LAN	The az/el interface for a Yaesu G-5500 and its relatives. GS-232 emulation, 19200 baud out of the box. Pick this rather than the GS-232 azimuth entry: it is what tells OpsLog the mast has an elevation motor.
Green Heron RT-21 / Hy-Gain DCU-1	Az	COM port, or TCP	Also Idiom Press Rotor-EZ and RotorCard DXA. Set the RT-21 to DCU-1 / Rotor-EZ — on GS-232 use the GS-232 row instead. With the Ethernet option, TCP reaches it directly; no serial-over-IP bridge. A DCU-1 is 4800 baud; others may differ — match the controller.
SPID / AlfaSpid	Az + El (Rot2Prog)	COM port	Native, so PstRotator is not needed in between. See below.
EasyComm II	Az + El	COM port or TCP	What SatPC32, Gpredict, Hamlib and K3NG firmware speak — the usual choice for a home-built az/el controller.

Each interface carries an Az or Az + El badge beside its name, so you can see at a glance which of your rotors can follow a satellite.

Rotator range (360° / 450°) appears for the interfaces OpsLog drives itself. A 450° mast follows a pass straight through north instead of unwinding. It is deliberately absent for PstRotator: PstRotator knows which controller is on the other end and does its own overlap, and two programs each deciding to go the long way round is how an antenna unwinds mid-pass.

SPID / AlfaSpid

Pick the dialect to match the controller — they are not interchangeable:

• Rot2Prog — RAS, BIG-RAS/HR, MD-01, MD-02. Azimuth and elevation. 600 baud.
• Rot1Prog — the older azimuth-only controllers (RAK, RAU). 1200 baud.

The two use different frame lengths, so a wrong choice shows up at once: the Test button reports a reply of the wrong length rather than leaving you to find out when the antenna turns oddly.

Two towers means two controllers, each on its own COM port and each a separate rotor in OpsLog.

The Test button on a SPID, an ARCO or a DCU-1 only READS the heading — it confirms the port, the speed and the dialect without moving anything, and says so. (PstRotator and a Rotator Genius are instead sent a move to 0°.)

Motorized antennas (Ultrabeam / SteppIR)

Both follow the rig frequency (band change → retune) and retune immediately when you click a spot, with three modes — Normal, 180° reverse, Bidirectional:

• The radiating direction is shown in green and the mechanical boom in grey, on both the compass and the map.
• On a FlexRadio, transmit is inhibited while the elements move, and released as soon as the antenna is tuned.
• SteppIR — Tunable range (Settings → Hardware → Antenna, default 13–54 MHz): outside it OpsLog leaves the antenna and the TX interlock completely alone, so tuning to 30 m on a 20 m–6 m SteppIR does nothing. Lower the bottom edge (e.g. to 6) for a SteppIR with the 40 m option.

How the controller is wired

A SteppIR controller is RS-232 serial, on the DATA OUT DB9 port.

• Serial — a USB↔RS-232 (FTDI) adapter, which appears as a COM port.
• Network — a serial-to-Ethernet bridge, exactly as for the Ultrabeam.

Tracking: every change, or step by step

Follow every frequency change gives the best resonance, but the motors run constantly — and on a SteppIR every move blocks transmit while the elements travel. The stepped modes retune only when the frequency has moved by more than the chosen step (25 / 50 / 100 kHz), or only on a band change.

Retract and calibrate

• Retract homes the elements into the hubs — the storage position, for a gale or for the winter. The next time the antenna is tuned it comes back out on its own.

• Calibrate (SteppIR) drives every element to its end stop so the controller re-learns where zero is. This is the cure for an antenna that tunes to the wrong length: after a power cut mid-move, after the elements were pushed by hand, after a motor slipped.

  It takes several minutes and the antenna is unusable until it finishes, so not during a contest.

Recovering a wedged controller

Some controllers lock up and only come back when their power is pulled — which nobody can do from another town. If the controller is plugged into one of your relay boards (Amplifiers and Switches), OpsLog can power-cycle it.

This switches mains power with nobody watching. Check the relay number twice — the wrong one cuts your amplifier or your radio.

It never fires while you are transmitting, and after the last attempt it stops trying until the controller answers again.

Related hardware: Amplifiers and Switches (Antenna Genius switch, Tuner Genius, relays).