[TowerTalk] Wireless tower direction indicator?

[Gene Fuller]

Jari -
You might try talking with Jeff at Green Heron. He has excellent rotator 
indicators and remote. boxes.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "jimlux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: "Jari Jussila" <jari.jussila at oh2bu.pp.fi>; "TOWERTALK Reflector" 
<TOWERTALK at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 9:09 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Wireless tower direction indicator?


> On 1/31/11 12:44 AM, Jari Jussila wrote:
>>
>>
>> I have a rotatable tower some 40m away from my ham shack. The old,
>> faithful tower rotator was hit in lighting and the potentiometer
>> telling the direction of my antennas was burned. The rotator being an
>> old, industrial model, the factory told me that there's no such
>> potentiometers available any more .......
>>
>> Now ....
>>
>> Does anybody know, if there are (commercial), potentiometerless
>> wireless (tower) direction indicators available in the market?
>>
>
> I don't know that you actually need potentiometer-less.. if it's all in
> a box, then it will be pretty lightning immune.
>
> I'd look at wireless wind direction indicators.  they're fairly
> in-expensive, because they're aimed at a consumer market, and you can
> probably retrofit the "windvane" part somehow.  Not totally turn-key,
> but pretty close.
>
> You might also be able to modify a wireless thermometer, but you'd need
> to figure out how to turn angular position into a signal that matches
> the temperature sensor's output (typically a voltage on a semiconductor
> sensor or a resistance on a thermistor).
>
> Totally off the shelf, there are a variety of factory control and
> monitoring type systems available.  I'd start by looking at the Omega
> Engineering catalog.  they're mostly temperature sensing, but they've
> probably got something like what you're looking for, although I don't
> recall angular position or magnetic field. http://www.omega.com/
>
> there are, of course, electronic compass modules with serial and analog
> outputs, but they're not an off-the-shelf turnkey system.  Look at what
> people are using for model airplanes and boats, for instance.
>
> For a more durable, and pricey, alternative, there are wireless
> compasses for boats.
>
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