Hi Guys, Seems a lot of talk about rotators lately, have you thought about building up your own, I did this around 15 years ago and the system has never been switched off apart from twice when moving QTH and the occasional service, greasing etc. My present QTH is 300 yds from the Southern Ocean and we get some almighty winds in the winter but it keeps on going. It's driven by 2 windshield wiper motors and constructed of parts that can generally be scrounged from vehicle and machinery junk yards etc. You will require a small welder to put it together and access to a lathe but really there's no great precision required in it's construction. I've described it's construction on my web site listed below. hopefully it will be of interest to some of you.
Absolutely. Unfortunately due to lack of tools and all the robot engineers around here, alot of the right parts are not available locally. Plus I move around too much right now with the way the tech market is so I'd rather have something that I can also have fun with portably.
Not to knock those who got the G-5400 or better. Nothing wrong with that equipment. But I like the homebrew aspect of the hobby as much as I like the COTS availability of parts/gear. Too bad I came around about 20 years too late for Heathkit otherwise I'd be buying stock in them! hihi...
But it's important even to the newer/younger potential hams that things like satellite communication can be done with style on a budget and even a little edgy to give them hope that one day they can own a 30 element EME array or have a 30 meter dish in their backyard on a appropriate az/el mount. Start small, think big. I got the right gear that has been missing the right antenna setup. But that's changing sooner than later...
See you on the birds!
de Don (KL7EET)
Tony VK5ZAI wrote:
Hi Guys, Seems a lot of talk about rotators lately, have you thought about building up your own, I did this around 15 years ago and the system has never been switched off apart from twice when moving QTH and the occasional service, greasing etc. My present QTH is 300 yds from the Southern Ocean and we get some almighty winds in the winter but it keeps on going. It's driven by 2 windshield wiper motors and constructed of parts that can generally be scrounged from vehicle and machinery junk yards etc. You will require a small welder to put it together and access to a lathe but really there's no great precision required in it's construction. I've described it's construction on my web site listed below. hopefully it will be of interest to some of you.
Hi folks,
Tony did a great job building his AZ-EL tracking system.
I have also done some work on this, building a lightweight system with a couple of motors from motorized car windows and discarded bicycle parts.
I have used an acetylene welder and manufactured a tool for forming helicoïdals out of 8mm diameter steel rods you can find in DIY shops. These helicoïdals drive the bicycle chainwheels. The AZ-EL booms are welded on the axes of the chainwheels.
The tracking sensors are microswitches moved by the teeth of the chainwheels. Zeroing the AZ-EL positioning is done by a second pair of microswitches sensing a 180 degrees semicircular rod epoxied to the chainwheels.
I have written the adhoc tracking software in Delphi. The electrical interface is a kit sold by a popular electronics editor (Elektuur). It uses an USB port.
This lightweight system is very rugged. Angular precision of AZ-EL positioning is limited to about 8 degrees, due to the chainwheel teeth sensing. This is sufficient for tracking the ISS with 145MHz crossed yagis.
73 Gaston - ON4WF
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At 03:50 11/09/2007, Tony VK5ZAI wrote: Hi Guys, Seems a lot of talk about rotators lately, have you thought about building up your own, I did this around 15 years ago and the system has never been switched off apart from twice when moving QTH and the occasional service, greasing etc. My present QTH is 300 yds from the Southern Ocean and we get some almighty winds in the winter but it keeps on going. It's driven by 2 windshield wiper motors and constructed of parts that can generally be scrounged from vehicle and machinery junk yards etc. You will require a small welder to put it together and access to a lathe but really there's no great precision required in it's construction. I've described it's construction on my web site listed below. hopefully it will be of interest to some of you.
participants (3)
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Don Fanning -
Gaston BERTELS -
Tony VK5ZAI