[TowerTalk] Yaesu G-1000DXA control box: pointer error

[Robert Chudek - K0RC]

Eric,

I have 3 of the G-1000DXA rotors. A year and a half ago I had all three of them on the kitchen table. I spent the better part of a day going through the alignment to get them accurate. One of them was perfect, the other two ended up "close enough" that the trade off between accuracy and time was not worth the extra effort.

There are two alignment pots on the back of the control head. They interact significantly during calibration. I connected the actual rotor cable I was going to install to eliminate any issue with changes in resistance for the metering.

The biggest time sink was waiting for the rotor to turn the full 450 degrees, make an adjustment, and repeat as needed. I put a short stick (a "pointer") in the rotor head to help visualize where the unit was pointing.  Also, I wasted time trying to get the red "overlap" LED to synchronize to the 360 degree position. I later discovered this is a mechanical setting inside the control head.

The two "trouble" units were difficult to get the synchronization between the rotor and controller in the last 15 ~ 30 degrees of rotation. Your trouble is much more severe with it going off track in less than 180 degrees.

Make sure the control pots are not "noisy" or you'll never get them set right. It would be nice if these pots were 10-turn precision units because my calibration time would have been measured in minutes instead of hours.

In hindsight, I could have saved a lot of time by opening the rotors and rotating the direction pot by hand.

73 de Bob - KØRC in MN

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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:10:02 -0500
From: Eric Scace K3NA <eric at k3na.org>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Yaesu G-1000DXA control box: pointer error
To: Towertalk <towertalk at contesting.com>
Message-ID: <45BED32A.4070901 at k3na.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Hi folks --

   At W1KM the 10m stack is rotated by a Yaesu G-1000DXA.  The stack is 
side-mounted so we only get about 300? of azimuth coverage.

   The control box does not track direction very well.  At the full CCW 
limit (330?), we can set the pointer for the correct direction.  The 
display reads out correctly from NW through E.  Thereafter the indicator 
moves smaller and smaller distances ... so that, by the time the antenna 
is pointing SW, the display indicator is 45? behind (i.e., pointing S).

   Recently this problem became worse.  The indicator no longer tracks 
even in the previously-correct NW-through-E sector.

   We suspect something has gone wrong in the electronics within in the 
control box... but wonder if anyone else has had -- and fixed -- this 
problem.

   Thanks.

-- Eric K3NA