This interesting question got me started. I have these vignettes in my Apollo-era memory of antenna systems that tracked launches for telemetry. They had maybe four end-fire helical antennas pointing toward the rocket, and were motorized for tracking. I seem to remember a person sat on them to do manual visual tracking with a telescope.
Am I mixing two different systems together (an optical telescope with human tracking and an automatic-tracking antenna) or were there antennas that were human guided?
Could someone let me know if they existed, and perhaps post an image and/or link to a system description?
Here are images of each aspect separately; a human-guided optical tracking camera, and an articulated quad array of end-fire helical antennas. Were they ever combined?
above: Contraves-Goerz Kineto Tracking Mount (KTM), from here.
above: "Satellite tracking-aquisition antenna, Pleumeur-Bodou, France. This type of antenna is called a Helical antenna. It transmits and receives circularly polarized radio waves, which are widely used for satellite communication." From here.