import { Card, CardGrid, LinkCard, Aside } from '@astrojs/starlight/components';
<Aside type="tip" title="Standing on the shoulders of saveitforparts">
This project builds directly on the open-source work of **Gabe Emerson (KL1FI)** and his
[saveitforparts](https://www.youtube.com/@saveitforparts) YouTube channel. Gabe documented
five different Winegard dish variants, wrote Python control scripts for each, and shared
everything on GitHub. Without his work, none of this would exist.
[Read the full story →](/journal/origins/)
</Aside>
## Why "Birdcage"?
The Carryout G2's white dome radome does look like a birdcage -- and in ham radio, satellites are called "birds." A birdcage catches birds from the sky.
It's also a nod to [saveitforparts](https://www.youtube.com/@saveitforparts). Gabe saves discarded RV satellite dishes "for parts." We took the parts and built a birdcage from them.
## What is this?
Winegard makes motorized satellite TV dishes -- the Trav'ler, Carryout, and their variants -- designed to automatically find DirecTV and DISH Network satellites from an RV rooftop. They have stepper motors for azimuth and elevation, firmware consoles accessible over RS-485 or RS-422, and enough mechanical range to track objects across most of the sky.
Birdcage repurposes that hardware for **amateur radio satellite tracking**: pointing a dish at LEO and GEO satellites using orbital prediction software like Gpredict, controlled via the Hamlib `rotctld` protocol.
Along the way, we've reverse-engineered the firmware console of the Carryout G2 (all 12 submenus, 100+ commands), mapped the K60 MCU's GPIO pins live over serial, built a BLE-to-RS422 wireless bridge, and discovered a built-in radio telescope mode.
## Where to start
<CardGrid>
<Card title="Getting Started" icon="rocket">
What hardware you need, how to connect, and your first satellite track.
The Carryout G2 has the most complete documentation — over 100 firmware commands mapped across 12 submenus, NVS settings dumped, GPIO pins identified, and motor control characterized.
<LinkCard title="Firmware Variant Comparison" href="/reference/firmware-variants/" description="Detailed comparison table of all five variants: baud rates, motor commands, position formats, and protocol differences." />
## Project journal
This isn't just a reference manual. The [project journal](/journal/) captures the story of how we got here — the debugging sessions, the discoveries, the moments where a `?` in the right submenu revealed a whole new capability. It's a living section that grows as the project evolves.
<LinkCard title="Read the journal" href="/journal/" description="Discovery stories, debugging sessions, and the ongoing narrative of this project." />
