That's not good news Kevin, but I appreciate the response.
I found my stash of glass fuses from the last hamfest, and unplugged the cables from both rotors, and as expected, it blows the fuse immediately.
If it's the azimuth rotor, I should be ok, since it just came back from Yaesu a couple of months ago. If it's the elevation, I had that one repaired based on the recommendations of another ham here, so both have been looked at in the last few months.
Guess I'll call Yaesu tomorrow and ask them how to proceed.
I spent years just moving the rotors by looking at SATPC32, and then I decided to get an LVB to make things easier, and that's what I get for fixing something that wasn't broken. I'm not blaming the LVB, it's just that it was great having it align the antennas for me. Unfortunately, I didn't get to use it for too long.
I also found a couple of day ago that my radio was putting out very lower power, and couldn't hear AO-51. I checked the SWR, and it was sky high. I knew the beams were ok, so I suspected the coax. I found my LMR400 had a soldered center conductor, and a crimped shield! I couldn't believe a company would sell rf coax with crimped connectors. So I'm in the process of replacing those.
The idea of using a Ham M type rotor (I have a couple spares), and a Radio Shack rotor for elevation is sounding pretty good right now.
73 de W4AS Sebastian
On Jul 8, 2009, at 7:31 PM, Kevin Schuchmann wrote:
Sebastian, unfortunately your describing a shorted transformer, unplug both az and el cables and then see if it still blows fuses, if it does the transformer has probably shorted, and more bad news it also means either the az or el motor is probably also shorted and gone.
The Yaesu rotors have a bad track record for getting a cable snag or a problem inside where a motor jams and then overheats and shorts and then it takes out the transformer...
:-(
Kevin WA6FWF