[TowerTalk] Rotator and Beam advice requested

[jimlux]

On 8/21/16 10:28 PM, Roger (K8RI) on TT wrote:
> Doesn't retracting the tape after every session create extra wear on the
> tape and other moving parts. BR/CU tape doesn't have an infinite life,
>
> 73


It doesn't have an infinite life, but it's probably pretty long. BeCu is 
used for springs and in that use has million cycle kind of life.  It 
would be the lucky ham who has a million cycles on their tapes.


It's kind of like life on rotator pots:  A typical "panel pot" might 
have a design life of a few tens thousand rotations, compared to a 
purpose designed position feedback pot with a million rotations, 
compared to a trim pot with a design life of a few dozen.

At first I thought that the use of a panel pot in a rotator was driven 
by cost (feedback pots are >$100 for good ones) - but then I thought .. 
say you operate every day for a few hours, and you move the antenna 
every 10 minutes, call it 50 moves/day.  That's 1500 moves a year, and 
if your pot has a design life of 20,000 cycles, you've got years and 
years of duty.

(this after having worn out a panel pot in a mechanical device using it 
for feedback, where we had a cycle every second... in a day you get 
nearly 100,000 cycles)