Almost any rotator of sufficient size to turn the antenna with a
potentiometer will suit your needs if you use a large enough cable to
minimize voltage drop. My last station had cable runs well over 500 feet to
TIC Ring rotators and I had no problems. I would be cautious if using a
rotator with a pulse indicator as some controllers may not work with longer
runs (Green Heron claims that his unit will work with longer runs.). I
don't think having 400 feet of rotator cable is that unusual. I would be
more concerned about whether the SteppIR will work properly with that long
of a run.
John KK9A / P40A
To: "Tower Talk List" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Rotor for Long Cable Run
From: "Jim Brown"
Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 13:02:37 -0700
I'm planning the install for a 3-el SteppIR (w/6M element) that
requires a cable run of about 400 ft. (no 30M/40M elements -- I've
already got dipoles at 100 ft).
I'll be doing a lot of contesting, so I don't want it to be TOO slow.
Considering the cost of copper, I can spend a few more bucks on the
rotor if it's more tolerant of copper loss. I would prefer not to go
to the trouble of remote relays if I can avoid it.
Other considerations: This is going to be on a tall tower and I'm
well past my climbing days, so paying more for reliability is a no-
brainer. The tower and the antenna will be sheltered from the wind in
a dense grove of redwoods, and top winds outside the grove are about
85 mph. Computer control is not important for me.
The cost of copper is going to be quite significant. The questions
are,
1) how much (that is, how big) copper do I really heed, and
2) Which rotor should I use?
Thoughts?
73,
Jim K9YC
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