Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes

Reviews For: Idiom Press/Ham Supply RotorCard - Yaesu DXA Rotator Controller

Category: Antenna Rotators & Accessories

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Idiom Press/Ham Supply RotorCard - Yaesu DXA Rotator Controller
Reviews: 35MSRP: 149.95
Description:
"Point and Shoot” RotorCard computer control RS-232 interface for ALL Yaesu DXA model rotator controllers mounts inside your Yaesu DXA box. No external box required
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hamsupply.com/rotorcard-yaesu-dxa-rotors/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00354.5
WE1X Rating: 2003-06-03
Excellent Value Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Ordered the RotorCard for my Yaesu G1000-DXA over the Internet on Thursday and recevied the unit following Monday. As said earlier, reading the instructions took longer than installation and calibration. Hyperterminal was just fine for calibrating the unit.

Use it with MixW v2.08 and Logger32 beta. Works great. Should have done this earlier. Only wish / suggestion is the serial cable be longer.
K3DMG Rating: 2003-03-25
Great additon to the shack. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After years of using a home brewed logging program I wrote in dBase IV it was recently replaced by PDA's Logic6 (HoseNose). One of the interesting features of this program is rotor control. Having a Yaesu G-2800DXA rotor, I choked when I saw the price of the Yaesu computer interface. The interface card offered by Idiom Press seemed like a very reasonablely priced alternative.

Ordering a card via the idiom press web site was simple, but I was disappointed to get an "out-of-stock" email the day I placed my order, the note also stated that one would be shipped by the end of the week via priority mail. Yep, as promised, the card arrived the following Monday ... not bad!

Installation and calibration could not have been easier, quicker or documented better. Interfacing to the Logic6 logging program was a snap. A simple click of the mouse on a DX spot now sets the rig to freq & mode, but also sets the rotor to the correct direction.

Great product, very reasonably priced and a valuable addition to the station. Idiom Press certainly is an excellent and reliable company to deal with.

Lee - K3DMG
K7KAR Rating: 2002-12-26
A screwdriver and a few minutes and presto. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
It takes much longer to read the directions (which you should do) than it does to get the card working. I hooked it up, turned on WriteLog and it just worked. Couldn't ask for more.
KA1EIV Rating: 2002-03-11
Piece of CAKE! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have always wanted to try the automatic features of my Yaesu G-1000DXA with some of the available logging software and rig control software. Yaesu wants in excess of $500 for their interface... Oh well. I just registered a copy of Log Windows and was complaining to a friend how it would be nice to be able to use the rotor control functions. But the Yaesu Interface was far too expensive... he pointed me to Idiom Press. I read the info on their web site, three times thinking "There has to be a hidden catch... $149.00. What am I missing? Nothing... I bought one and had it, the software and my TS-2000 talking to each other in about an hour. The board calibrated easily, installed easily and works accurately! If you want DX automation and you've got a Yaesu Rotor... BUY ONE! You won't be sorry. 73!
AC0X Rating: 2002-01-01
FINALLY!! Inexpensive, practical, and easy to install!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Finally, a practical solution to controlling your Yaesu DXA rotator!!!! All the other products I've tried before are either expensive (Yaesu's unit costs about $500), require tricky soldering inside the control box (including attaching thin tap wires so your wires and the originals can fit in a plug), don't take advantage of Yaesu's slow down feature (some even have an "overshoot" adjustment!!), take up a PC card slot (that does NOTHING except draw control current), need an interface card that needs it's own separate enclosure (never provided, and necessary unless you want stray RF turning your rotator for you), provide TERRIBLE directions (one manufacturer claimed their unit worked with a DXA rotator but only had installation directions for a HyGain rotator!), or require a proprietary software interface (where you have to beg your favorite logging software designer to write a revision for it).

The RotorCard DXA is NONE of these. It's inexpensive ($150), it requires NO soldering (you can remove the unit from your control box and leave it in it's original state!), it takes advantage of the Yaesu slow-down feature AND both South and North centered rotators, it requires only a connection to a PC serial port (there is NO PC card to waste a slot), the interface card installs easily INSIDE the existing rotator control box, it comes with excellent documentation (including notes with detailed descriptions describing components and even describing what they mean by "front" and "back" of the control box), and is controlled by any software that can already talk to a HyGain DCU controller (which is most all of them).

If you want a computer interface to your Yaesu DXA rotator, this is the ONLY solution out there (unless you've got the EXTRA $500 to throw around for the Yaesu box). My recommendation, if you want to computer control your Yaesu DXA rotator, get the RotorCard DXA from Idiom Press.