How are you going to use USALS on a cband dish with a actuator?
Let's distinguish between a few things, first:
1. USALS, though it is an abbreviation for "Universal Satellites Automatic Location System", is basically just a combination of an angle calculation (inside a receiver) and the diseqc GotoX command.
So to call it a "system", might be derived from the fact that the calculation is done at the moment of giving the motor command, maybe? I am not sure what the "system" part in the name refers to.
Also referring to it as a protocol: I don't know what part of USALS is a protocol, apart from the communication protocol of diseqc. The calculation is "common maths", so that might be called a calculation protocol, but then every calculation sequence can be called a protocol...
2. I wrote: "
I would use what I call the USALS-method", meaning the method by which "
you use the exact distance of a (random) reference satellite to the zenith/apex satellite position". Allowing any reference satellite, to (simultanuously) align perfectly to due south.
To answer your question:
One could build an internal calculator for a receiver, to give an immediate pulsecount command for moving an actuator, just as it is done for a rotor rotation-command in a USALS receiver. However, though there are Raspberry Pi's etc, I've not seen this built by anyone yet.
Note: just as with USALS motors, backlash (play) might make the result of the positioning commands inaccurate. So that sometimes people switch to diseqc 1.2 GotoNn commands. But the 'finding' of satellites would be easier, as you would be already very much in the neighbourhood.
What is possible, in the meantime, is to calculate actuator lengths/pulses for all the satellites you want, and store them in a (.csv) file and use that in for instance an ASC1, if I understand correctly how that works.
I've already made a spreadsheet with actuator lengths for an Austrian setup, who only needed to add the pulse-count per actuator length to make it work with his (French) "JPC-Posi" positioner.
The basis for these calculations are the "USALS-angle" calculation (I believe they also call it "hour angle"?), and then the "actuator triangle" calculation, and then the pulses calculation.
Does this answer your question?
Greetz,
A33
