[TowerTalk] "Pre-install" Your Rotator

[Fred Hopengarten]

Recent comments by W7NI, who is well experienced in such matters, urging
readers to "install" a rotator on the ground before bringing it up the
tower, prompt me to offer the following tip.

I install the same type of connectors, with correct "sex" (or is it
gener?), in both the shack and atop the tower.  This allows me to plug
the rotator into the control box in the shack.  Thus, I have a pigtail
from the rotator to a male 8 pin Cinch Jones.  Then I have a female Cinch
Jones and a 250 foot run with a male Cinch Jones at the top of the tower.
 Then I have a female Cinch Jones on a pigtail to the rotator.

Thus I can test the rotator in the shack, test a replacement rotator in
the shack, and test a repaired rotator in the shack.  I can also
substitute another control box if I suspect a problem in the control box
(has the motor starting capacitor died of old age?).  I can also move a
contrl box to re-arrange the shack from single op to multi-single without
undoing eight wires on a terminal strip. 

All these conveniences are offered for the expense of a few connectors --
well worth the price.

Fred Hopengarten  K1VR               617/259-0088
Six Willarch Road
Lincoln, MA 01773-5105
permanent e-mail address:  fhopengarten@mba1972.hbs.edu



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