I have the same issue, some 400' to towers sited for ground slope
advantage. I use a pair of remote 24VDC relays for each rotator, with
power supplied by Romex from the house and the relay coils and direction
indicators run through CAT 5 cables.
The power from the house is off unless I'm rotating, turned on by a
relay that goes on when I press the rotator control switch. For prop
pitches without brakes, I use an extra large gauge cable for the power,
and short it with the relay to provide some motor braking when off. The
Green Heron unit might do this without a lot of home construction.
Future projects include non-potentiometer direction indicators for all
rotators (compass units like 4O3A, or clickers?), and separate limit
switches to prevent the too-often coax destruction that comes from
direction indicator failure (ring rotors, I'm talking about you). Grant
KZ1W, who has a bunch of rings on a tower, sent me photos of his limit
switch setup that works right at the rotator. I'm not happy relying only
on the unreliable direction indicator for over-rotation protection, and
hope to work out something similar.
73 de Dave, W6NL/HC8L
On 2/17/26 1:32 PM, john@kk9a.com wrote:
I have used heavy gauge THHN for 400-500 ft rotator lines. It is a easy
solution that works perfectly (albeit somewhat expensive these days). I am
not aware of any rotator manufacture that specifies the allowable wire
resistance or voltage drop so it's tough to choose the best wire size.
Another option is Green Heron Engineering makes a remote power unit for prop
pitch rotators which runs on 120/240v A/C and it allows smaller gauge wire
from the shack controller to the RPU.
John KK9A
George Collins george.kc1v wrote:
Hello,
Have put up a second tower that will be used just for HF antennas. It's in
a nice location except for one problem: it's 500 feet away from my shack.
I'm looking for suggestions on how to deal with a very long rotator cable
run. There is a barn with electricity a 100 feet from the tower where a
controller could be located. I'm thinking that I could run light-gauge
control wires from the shack to a controller in the barn, thus avoiding the
large IR drop in the motor wires. The difficulty I see with this
approach is the long run for the position indicator wires. I think they
will likely pick up RF or other electrical noise. Perhaps some type of
buffer or line driver could be used.
I would also consider just running heavy-conductor cable directly from the
shack to the tower, if affordable cable was available. I think I would
still have to deal with long position-indicator lines.
Perhaps a wireless solution may be the best method, but I would probably
need to copy someone else's design. I am familiar with various
microcontrollers and SBCs, but I haven't done anything programming of WiFi
networks, etc. I would like to use the typical Hy-Gain/CDR type controller
and I will probably use a HAM-IV rotator, although a Yaesu rotator is a
possibibly. Making electrical modifications to the rotator or controller
is not a problem.
Any suggestions (other than moving the shack to the barn hi hi) will be
very much appreciated.
73,
George, KC1V
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|