[TowerTalk] The tower soap opera may be nearing its end

[Larry Loen]

Thanks very much to Jerry, K0FC, it appears that my tower problems may be
coming to an end.  (Without him, it's safe to say nothing much would have
happened this weekend).

Jerry and I met at a local Maricopa group that meets for breakfast once a
month.  He agreed to give me some of his time and we had a very useful
Sunday afternoon.

As I think I related to the group, I had picked the wrong class of MOVs
(that's the working theory anyway) and as a consequence, a lot of things
briefly shorted to a lot of other things before I got wise to what the
blown fuses were telling me.  Certainly, when I removed the MOVs, the fuse
stopped blowing.

Whether it was because of that or some factory defect, the tower would
raise and not lower.  Thanks to a lot of dogged work (almost all by Jerry
who could read a not-very-easy-to-read spec) we finally isolated the
problem to the lower limit switch.  That is frozen in the wrong position
and seems to screw everything up, far more than you might expect.  It was
shorted and, moreover, it did not "click" the way the upper limit switch
did when we tested it "in situ".

We also proved it by keeping it out of the circuit and doing a critical
jumpering that lowered the tower.  Since, by definition, the limit switch
was out, I did not lower it all the way, but it was nice to see it move
down, especially as we had (many times) to make it go up a little bit to
prove this or that theory.

The LEDs on the remote "head" all seem to light normally now as well.  So,
off to US Tower to get a replacement switch and then it is highly likely
that the tower will function normally.  It also means that most of the
tower is sound and intact.  A relief.

The M2 Orion and the Green Heron controller also worked on the "bench".
So, as long as I can assemble the 6BA correctly, I should be near the end
of my tales of woe.

With luck, I should have a "tower day" where I put the rotor, the mast, and
the antenna together and then we'll see if I have a system.



Larry Wo0Z