Winegard Trav'ler

Control a Winegard Trav'ler motorized satellite dish via RS-485 for amateur radio satellite tracking.

Project

Package: travler-rotor (installed via uv sync)
CLI entry point: travler-rotor (init / serve / pos / move)
Source layout: src/travler_rotor/ (src-layout)
Original upstream: Trav-ler-Rotor-For-HAL-2.05/ — Gabe Emerson's scripts, kept as reference (do not modify)

Build & Lint

uv sync                           # Install deps + package
uv run ruff check src/             # Lint
uv run ruff format --check src/    # Format check
uv run travler-rotor --help        # CLI smoke test

Architecture

protocol.py   — FirmwareProtocol ABC + HAL205Protocol / HAL000Protocol
                Serial I/O owned here. Each firmware version is a subclass.
leapfrog.py   — Pure function: apply_leapfrog(target, current) -> adjusted
                Predictive overshoot to compensate for mechanical motor lag.
antenna.py    — TravlerAntenna: high-level control wrapping protocol + leapfrog
                This is what consumers (CLI, rotctld, future MCP server) call.
rotctld.py    — RotctldServer: Hamlib rotctld TCP protocol (p/P/S/_/q)
                Bridges Gpredict to the antenna.
cli.py        — Click CLI with init/serve/pos/move subcommands

Hardware Protocol Notes

RS-485 serial, 57600 baud, 8N1
Motor commands: a <motor_id> <degrees> (0=azimuth, 1=elevation)
Position query: a returns AZ = <val> EL = <val> SK = <val>
HAL 2.05 motor submenu: motor command; search kill via ngsearch -> s -> q
HAL 0.0.00 motor submenu: mot command; search kill sequence undocumented
Boot signals (HAL 2.05): "NoGPS" or "No LNB Voltage" indicate homing complete
Elevation floor: HAL 2.05 unreliable below 15 degrees with direct motor commands

Known Bugs (from upstream)

Leap-frog elevation bug: original travler_rotor.py lines 98-105 modify target_az instead of target_el. Fixed in leapfrog.py. See docs/bugs.md.

Testing

No hardware-in-the-loop tests yet. Protocol implementations can be mocked for unit testing — FirmwareProtocol is an ABC with clear method contracts.

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