RE: [amsat-bb] Lock on Tracking

["Bruce Rahn" <brahn@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In my younger years, I use to fly on an airborne telemetry receiving
platform and we employed an auto tracking scheme on a seven foot dish
(mainly L and S Band) using pseudo monopulse techniques (actually, the total
tracking system was much more complex than this, but the heart of the auto
track system was based on this concept).  Other techniques employed in the
space and missile telemetry community are monopulse and conical scanning as
means of auto tracking spacecraft and missiles in flight.

I did a quick search on Google and turned up the following patent
application which might be of interest to those following this thread as it
provides an overview of some of the challenges in auto tracking.  If you are
interested, see:  http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/txt/ep/0460/866/

You might peek at these too: http://www.hamhud.net/darts/interog.htm
				     http://www.qsl.net/ka9mva/darts/

My gut feel, for amateur applications, is as Ed pointed out, predictive
tracking is the most cost effective approach.  However, if I were to get
back into playing with this stuff, I sure would look at pseudo monopulse.

Keep up the chat.  An interesting topic!

Regards -- Bruce


Bruce Rahn
WB9ANQ
brahn@woh.rr.com

Wisdom has two parts:
1.  having a lot to say; and
2.  not saying it!


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