[Fourlanders] Rotator Troubleshooting

Jim Worsham wa4kxy at bellsouth.net
Sun Aug 10 18:06:46 EDT 2008


The first thing I would do is borrow a spare control box from someone and
try it out before messing with the rotator.  I learned long ago to check the
stuff on the ground first.  The Fourlanders own a G-450 I believe.  The
control box should be in the great white trailer at Bob's place.  If the
rotator works with the Fourlander's control box then your control box is
most likely toast from the lightning strike.  If that is the case, Ron has a
lot of experience repairing those things.  He repaired one a couple of years
ago that Bob and I had just about given up on.  It was purchased at a
hamfest and we found out when we got it home that it had been hit by
lightning.  Bob and I worked on that thing for a year replacing just about
every part in the damn thing but couldn't get it to work.  We gave it to Ron
to look at and he found a cracked resistor in less than a day.  Since then,
Bob and I recognize and defer to Ron's superior troubleshooting skills.

73
Jim, W4KXY

-----Original Message-----
From: fourlanders-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:fourlanders-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of S Kosmetatos
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2008 5:37 PM
To: fourlanders at contesting.com
Subject: [Fourlanders] Rotator Troubleshooting

I bought a Yaesu G-450 rotator about a month ago and noticed that the pins
in the connector on the back of the control box sometimes didn't make good
contact in the socket, and I would sometimes have to push them in a bit to
get the rotator to work. It's been a couple of weeks since I've used it, and
now I can't get the rotator to turn at all. The pins seem to be making good
contact. The other bizarre thing is that the overlap LED comes on -
sometimes.

I had a pretty severe lightning hit in the neighborhood and lost two phones
and a fax machine last week; I don't know if the rotator or control box was
affected. The coax to the antennas were disconnected, but the rotator
control cable was plugged in.

My question is: how do I test to make sure I have good power coming out of
the control box before I go through the trouble of taking down the rotator?
The Yaesu manual is worthless - I need to know what voltage I have on which
pins when operating the rotator. Anyone have this information? I assume the
unit uses 24 VAC, if it's like others I've worked on, but I'd like an
opinion if anyone has one.

Thanks,

Kos

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