I am looking to upgrade my ant from fixed to rotor, but am wondering if it is really worth it? I see A Lot of posts on here with all kinds of questions and problems. However my back is not handling manually rotating my simple tower with a couple Diamond yagis and a vertical at the top.
If I were to spend the money, what would be the best no hassle rotator I Should get?
Thanks for any info I love talking with you people on the sats but my manual setup is not so happy... :(
Kevin KF7MYK
I am looking to upgrade my ant from fixed to rotor, If I were to spend the money, what would be the best no hassle rotator I Should get?
I am sure there will be lots of good ideas come from this, but for what it is worth I will give you my nickels worth.
I have tried lots of ways. Used U100 series rotors, handmade types from ventilation damper motors to stepper motors, and old TVRO jack drives. In the end I have used the Yaesu G5500/5400 for most of my time. I have bought used and regreassed them, even repaired the odd controller. I have never bought new though.
I have had 2 of them in 10 years. I have never had any burn out or fail from any use. I take the satellite system down about every 5 years for maintenance, which means taking apart the rotors for inspection and greasing. The only time I have ever replaced one, is to upgrade from 5400 to 5500, when I added 1296 and 2304 beams in hope of AO-40 and AO-???.
From what I read most failures are from installation errors, or living in the salt areas of the oceans. Living here in the cold climate of Canadian winters, I find they work great. And no I do not have shares in the company.
But it comes down to the type of operator you are. For me, I wanted something that works and can be controlled by automatic means with no hassles. That is why I stay with the Yaesu units. I guess it comes down to do you want to operate, or have fun designing, building, or repairing other units.
Well I was not expecting that good of a reply, but thank you very much, as a novice I did not mean to put down any rotor as I have not yet used one, just was a little scetchy on all the posts like I said.
Welcome to any other replies, but having that from the Greater North pretty much did it. The cold operation also said alot thanks again... :)
Kevin KF7MYK
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 08:00:40 -0500 From: ve3nxk@gmail.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Rotor vs problems
I am looking to upgrade my ant from fixed to rotor, If I were to spend the money, what would be the best no hassle rotator I Should get?
I am sure there will be lots of good ideas come from this, but for what it is worth I will give you my nickels worth.
I have tried lots of ways. Used U100 series rotors, handmade types from ventilation damper motors to stepper motors, and old TVRO jack drives. In the end I have used the Yaesu G5500/5400 for most of my time. I have bought used and regreassed them, even repaired the odd controller. I have never bought new though.
I have had 2 of them in 10 years. I have never had any burn out or fail from any use. I take the satellite system down about every 5 years for maintenance, which means taking apart the rotors for inspection and greasing. The only time I have ever replaced one, is to upgrade from 5400 to 5500, when I added 1296 and 2304 beams in hope of AO-40 and AO-???.
From what I read most failures are from installation errors, or living in the salt areas of the oceans. Living here in the cold climate of Canadian winters, I find they work great. And no I do not have shares in the company.
But it comes down to the type of operator you are. For me, I wanted something that works and can be controlled by automatic means with no hassles. That is why I stay with the Yaesu units. I guess it comes down to do you want to operate, or have fun designing, building, or repairing other units.
-- Bill Booth VE3NXK Sundridge ON, Canada 79.23.37 W x 45.46.18 N FN05ns
Visit my weather WebCam at http://www.almaguin.com/wxcurrent/weather.html
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participants (2)
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Bill Booth -
Kevin Deane