[TowerTalk] Rotator Brake noise on CW

[EUGENE SMAR]

TT:

      Here's a new one.  As I was swinging the D40 dipole around tonight,
trying to zero in on a UA6 in the lower end of 40, his CW note got slightly
raspy when I depressed the brake switch on the Tailtwister control box.  Not
enough to distort the signal into obliteration, but enough that I could hear
it as maybe a T-7 note.  I tried a few other S4-S7 stations and they all
sounded the same with the brake depressed - a slight amount of raspiness.
Likewise, the raspiness was also superimposed on SSB signals higher in the
band.

     FYI:  The rotator is about 20 feet below the dipole on the mast and I
use RG-213 coax to fee the antenna.  Rotator control cable is ordinary
8-conductor stuff, but I did wind a four-turn solenoid in the control cable
pigtail lead just underneath the rotator (as I had planned to do to put some
inductance between a lightning strike and the innards of the rotator.)  Xcvr
is a TS-570D, and I haven't tried listening on my R-4C yet.

     Is this symptomatic of an incipient failure anywhere in the rotator
system?  Or is this something harmless I'll have to live with?

     Thanks in advance.

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F


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