[TowerTalk] Re: Rotor control line swithcing

[Jim White, K4OJ]

Perhaps my point of view is different since I look to keep to a minimum 
things that could break... when I operate I like to operate... the more 
switches and remote apparatus you have the more things you have that can 
fail - perhaps this is born from being in FL for about 25 years now 
where lightning is a given and components outside the shack are 
especially vulnerable.

If you wanted to control two rotators with a remote switchbox you would 
need to control that switchbox so you need some sort of cabling no 
matter what... if you have a second run of rotor control cable - which 
for Ham-? rotors is inexpensively done with two runs of housewiring from 
a home center! You probably can avoid those sleepless nights before 
radio contests wondering what will be broken at 00 Zulu.

And of course, you are not using more than one radio at a time at your 
QTH, Rick... if you want to do the SO2R or multi-single or multi-multi 
operations you HAVE to have independant feedlines... also, I wish I had 
your wallet and could afford to pay what you are quoting as pricing for 
feedline - $2.50 a foot! OUCH!!!!!!!  Are you operating up in the UHF 
and VHF spectrum - I am stricly HF and cannot imagine paying that kind 
of money for feedline!

As far as that run of feedline gone bad - wouldn't that REALLY suck if 
it was your common feedline going to your remote switchmaster?

I just bought a spool of LMR400 off e-bay and including freight it was 
40 cents a foot... fortunately I am also a scrounger and have friends 
who keep their eyes and ears open for commercial feedline replacement 
"drop" pieces...

For almost 10 years I used 70 ohm CATV hardline drops (free) as my 
feedlines to the base of the towers (4) and have just this
Summer began replacing them.

But, if you want to be a remote switch kinda guy go for it - for my 
style of operating where I demand reliability the KISS rule ALWAYS wins 
out - less tuff to break means less stuff is broken....

Your mileage may vary! What's your call and QTH, Rick?

Jim, K4OJ




Rick wrote:

> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Rotor control line switching
> 
> 
> 
>>sounds to me like trouble waiting to happen...
>>
>>A remote relay/switch box is one more thing outside to go wrong....
>>
>>I just replaced a control cable run with some house wiring this weekend
>>- 250 feet of house wiring was less than 30 bucks....
>>
>>K4OJ
>>
> 
> Jim,
> 
> I sure fail to see the economics in your analysis.   It cost 30 bucks to
> replace 250 ft of control line.  Let's see, if you have 5 antennas and you
> are going to run in 5 coax lines instead of 1.  That is an extra 1000 ft of
> coax.  Assume you use good  quality coax like Times Microwave LMR 900 at
> about $2.50 a foot.  The "extra expense" of running four additional coax
> lines would be $2500.   Of course you would have saved 60 bucks on control
> line (original plus the new you just ran) plus the cost of the coax switches
> (maybe 300 bucks on the high side).
> 
> In my case I have 5 towers and by using "remote relay switching" I used only
> about 550 ft of LMR 900.   If I had run a single coax to each tower I would
> have needed about 1600 ft. more of coax.   Obviously, the number of
> additional feet required varies with the physical layout of the different
> towers; where the distance from the shack to the first tower is where the
> major expense (or savings) would come in.
> 
> Running coax does not eliminate all problems either;  I helped a buddy of
> mine replace 150 ft of LMR 600 a couple years ago that had gone bad.
> 
> I have had very minimal trouble with my system and I have been using it at
> my QTH for about 8 years.   I have used inline switching since the early
> 80's and the need to run only one coax and rotor cable into the shack, far
> outweighs the need to run a coax line for each of the 10 HF amateur bands..
> By merely pushing the "band select" button on my Orion (Yaseu Mark V
> before), I am on the correct antenna and rotor (for the antennas with
> rotors).
> 
> Actually I run two rotor control lines because one of my towers has a M2
> rotor.   The M2 and Hy-Gain rotors are not even remotely compatible and
> running one additional rotor cable outweighed the headaches involved with
> double switching rotors and control boxes on one rotor cable.
> 
> 
> 
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