[Towertalk] ameritron rcs-8v

[Charley Schwartz]

The RCS-8V uses a control cable as the original poster stated. The RCS-4 uses
the coax between the control box and the remote box and superimposes a rectified
AC signal on the center conductor of the coax.

I believe you have the common misconnected to one of the relays. You should be
able to verify this by connecting an ohm meter between the relay control lines
to the remote box and the coax ground to the box. Verify on the instruction
sheet that the common on the controls is also the common on the coax. (On a
spare box I have the common control line is common to the metal panel/coax
shields). The other lines are several tens of ohms. Note that between relay
control lien to relay control line you will see two relay coils and the control
cable resistance. The resistance will not just double between the relay control
lines and the relay control line to ground.

I have used at least a dozen of these RCS-8V boxes and several RCS-4 boxes
without problem. I would assume it to be a wiring error.

Charley W1TE



Steve Katz wrote:

> Joe, the RCS-8V gets its ground, normally, by the coaxial cable shield on
> the main feedline between the shack (station) and the RCS-8V relay switch
> box.  You can add your own supplemental ground if you wish, but if you don't
> have a grounded coaxial cable running from station to switch box, the box is
> floating and the relays won't operate.
>
> WB2WIK/6
>
> "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." -
> Mario Andretti
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Joe Barnes [SMTP:n4jbk@bellsouth.net]
> > Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 7:46 AM
> > To:   towertalk@contesting.com
> > Subject:      [Towertalk] ameritron rcs-8v
> >
> > This past saturday I put an ameritron rcs-8v up on the tower, I am using 5
> > conductor #18 wire as the control wire. When I tried to use the antennas I
> > found that the switch was not selecting any of the antennas connected to
> > it. Checking the back of the control box I found that all of the terminals
> > had about 15.8 volts on them. When I disconnected the control box from the
> > wire there was voltage only on the terminal selected. I checked the
> > resistance between the wires and found it to be 250 ohms. When I first
> > hooked up the switch the tower was not grounded ( just put the tower up
> > the day before) . Does anyone w\know if this switch gets ground via the
> > tower? and does anyone have an idea of what is wrong with my brand new
> > ameritron switch?
> >
> > Thank you , Joe N4JBK
> >
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