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Re: [TowerTalk] Telrex rotator with sychro

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Telrex rotator with sychro
From: jimlux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2018 22:17:17 -0800
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 11/21/18 8:00 PM, Hans Hammarquist via TowerTalk wrote:
  Jim,

It is very easy to generate the V1, V2, V3 voltages if you want a receiver 
synchro to be set at a certain angles.

I'm thinking about the other direction - you have a synchro transmitter on the tower, and you want to measure it in the shack.



You can even us a DC voltage for that. You just use the equations you show and replace the
"cos(fline*2*pi*t)" with "1". It gets trickier to go the other way around as 
"C" not necessary is constant. You have to calculate that out of the know value of V1, V2, and V3.

An easy hack is to use the maximum of them (going from synchro to digital) or set one of them to max, and the other two at a fraction of max.



I'm sure there is an easy way to do that but it become a "little" easier if you first make a 
Scott-T transformation (see Wikipedia "Scott-T transformer) because your equations will be easier 
to reverse and calculation of "C" easier too.

C=(Vr^2*Vi^2)^1/2

theta=arctan(Vr/Vi)

When you finally are ready to implement your algorithm you have to make a 
synchronous rectification somewhere to get the value and the sign. You can do 
it before the A/D converter with a synchronous rectifier or probably with the 
software. (I would love to see a software that can do this. It should be 
possible.)

I was thinking more about just digitizing the AC waveform and calculating the amplitude by fitting a sine wave.

Or, it might be easier (I've not fooled with it yet) to turn each of the 3 voltages into a complex number by "mixing" with cos/sin at the excitation frequency.




Regarding the precision there are a few things to keep in mind. It is very 
important that the output voltages are kept good. That means that the 
attenuation in the signal lines have to be the same. If one of them is off you 
will experience an error in your read-out. Therefore, the control cable has to 
be of a good quality with even wire thickness and resistance along the cable. 
You have to use five wires, two for th excitation and three for the return 
signals. You can not use a common wire for excitation and signals at that would 
introduce errors.

There are commercial IC-s around that will do this.


Yes and they cost about $2000 for some reason. Probably a limited market. The last time I used them was in the late 90s, early 2000s, and when I checked last week, it hasn't changed much. They're actually a thick film hybrid in a package that looks like a 24 or 28 pin DIP, but with a stainless steel can.


I know one application where a virtual sychro is virtually rotated and the "C" is adjusted until the V'1, V'2 and V'3 are as equal to the received signal as possible (leaving room for variations in an unbalanced attenuation). You notice that adjustment process as the output signal varies untill the readout stops at the correct value.

Who will be the first to make a Ham-type software to decode the sychro signal? 
I will be the first in line to get it.



73 de,

Hans - N2JFS
-----Original Message-----
From: jimlux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
To: towertalk <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Mon, Nov 19, 2018 10:14 am
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Telrex rotator

On 11/19/18 6:31 AM, Hans Hammarquist via TowerTalk wrote:
Hi Martin,

Decoding the signals from a selsych is a "little" complex as it require you to 
do A/D convert all three signals at the same time, then do the mathematical quirk to 
calculate the angle out of that. Not impossible.

Assuming you don't need microdegree accuracy, and 1 degree is good
enough, you don't actually need "precisely synchronized" sampling,
...

The voltage on each winding is:
V1 = C* cos(theta)*cos(fline*2*pi*t)
V2 = C* cos(theta+2pi/3) * cos(fline*2*pi*t)
V3 = C* cos(theta+4pi/3) * cos(fline*2*pi*t)


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