A picture would be worth a thousand words, but lets give it a try, the motor is attached to what looks like a metal "bow tie" and is surrounded by a coil spring with a bent tab at each end, when the motor runs the bow tie grabs a tab and "pulls" the spring with it and the pulling winds the spring in slightly and reduces it's size thus dropping drag, when not running and you try to manually turn it the bow tie is now "pushing" against the spring tab which makes the spring try to get bigger and drag goes up stopping you from moving, if your freewheeling...
A) setscrew loose on bow tie and is slipping on motor shaft b) bow tie is too high or low and allowing spring tab to miss c) rotor got jarred badly and spring got knocked out of position d) previous maintenance put the wrong grease on the spring and it is slipping (how would I know that? lol) should be white lithium and just a little
73 Kevin WA6FWF
On 3/14/2015 8:47 PM, Jim Jerzycke wrote:
Here's a quick question for those that have had the azimuth rotor apart.....
Last year when I packed things up from Field Day, I left the antennas and cross-boom in my "Mini Portable Roof Mount" system. During the drive home, my son noticed the antennas were windmilling in azimuth.
When we got home and unloaded the set up, you could turn the azimuth rotor by hand. It still hits the stops, and I haven't tried to run it, but I'm wondering what shook loose during the ride home.
Yeah, me bad for not pulling the cross-boom out!
I haven't taken the azimuth rotor apart yet (I have 4 complete G-5400 and G-5500 sets), so do you think I really busted something, or did a setscrew just come loose?
73, Jim KQ6EA
PS....I'll be using my "regular" setup for Field Day this year as NI6BB onboard the Battleship Iowa.