sunalign - Antenna alignment by tracking the sun.

SYNOPSIS

sunalign
sunalign   unit
sunalign   unit   duration

DESCRIPTION

sunalign issues a tracking command to the antenna controller to track the sun for 6 minutes. This command is used to align the antenna associated with a telemetry chain  so that the feed horn of the antenna will form a shadow that is centered at the center of the reflector (i.e. dish). This command should not be issued more than two times (12 minutes total) to avoid overheating the feed if the antenna uses a dish.  If the antenna uses a flat plate feed, the sun alignment tool is placed on the feed and the shadow forms a circle about the base of the alignment tool. Flat plate feeds cannot be overheated and can be sunaligned as many times as desired.  The antenna unit to be aligned and the duration to track are optional parameters.

PARAMETERS

Unit -is the telemetry chain whose associated antenna is to be aligned.

Unit Duration - is the length of time to sunalign the antenna. Its format is minutes:seconds.

EXAMPLES

[1]%sunalign
Beginning Sun Alignment of the antenna on chain 1
The antenna will track the sun for the next 06:00 minutes.

[2]%sunalign 3
Beginning Sun Alignment of the antenna on chain 3
The antenna will track the sun for the next 06:00 minutes.

[3]%sunalign 1 10:30
Beginning Sun Alignment of the antenna on chain 1
The antenna will track the sun for the next 10:30 minutes.

FILES

 system.config, antenna.config

SEE ALSO

ac, trackeye, whereami, dataacquisition, antennaalignment, align, autoalign

NOTES

THIS COMMAND CANNOT NOT BE USED WHILE THE ANTENNA IS ACQUIRING DATA. IT WILL DENY ACCESS TO THE ANTENNA FOR SUN ALIGNMENT PURPOSES. IF THE sunalign COMMAND IS ISSUED BEFORE A PASS STARTS, IT WILL INTERFERE WITH THE NORMAL REQUESTS ISSUED BY THE ANTENNA TRACKING PROGRAM antenna. Commands such as ac will be blocked by this command.

If a GPS unit is part of this antenna, a delay of up to 60 seconds may occur before this command is accepted.

The command should not be used before sunrise or after sunset. The command whereami should be run first to verify the correct antenna location. The date should be verified on the system before running this command. The time must be set correctly using date or sunclock before running this command.


Last Update: $Date: 2000/07/21 21:31:27 $