[TowerTalk] HyGain Rotor Mod

[Patrick Greenlee]

Once upon a time a long time ago when Winchester drives were super high 
tech (circa 1972) you could buy COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) 
components that could detect the passage of gear teeth and put out a 
pulse for each tooth passing the detector.  IIRC they were three 
terminal devices (Hall effect I think) with a wire for supply, one for 
ground and one for the logic level output, i.e. digital ones and zeroes. 
There were schemes for detecting direction of gear rotation too so 
angular position could be known to the resolution of one gear tooth 
divided by number of teeth multiplied by 360 degrees.

LED light sources and photo detectors counting interruptions of the beam 
as the gear rotates were also used to maintain knowledge of angular 
position and direction of rotation.  I think I could add either of these 
above technologies without the disassembly required to remove a gear and 
affix a magnet.

I would assume similar (or better) tech is available these days.

Patrick        NJ5G


On 5/28/2018 12:10 PM, Dennis W0JX via TowerTalk wrote:
> Kathy:
> There is truth in the fact that there is a modification for counting the gear turns. However, there is no kit at this time. The HyGain folks at Xenia explained that the gear train needs to be disasembled and one of the gears is replaced by one that has a magnet on it. Then a sensor is mounted that counts the turns or senses the potion of the gear.
>
> I was told that I would need to contact a technician at the HyGain factory and that they would explain what parts are needed to do the modificatoin.
>
> 73 Dennis W0JX
> --------------------------------------------
> On Mon, 5/28/18,  <towertalk-request at contesting.com> wrote:
>
>   Subject: TowerTalk Digest, Vol 185, Issue 32
>   To: towertalk at contesting.com
>   Date: Monday, May 28, 2018, 12:00 PM
>   
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>   Today's Topics:
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>      1. eliminating the 360 pot in
>   the Ham-m rotators (Kathy Bookmiller)
>   
>   
>   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>   
>   Message: 1
>   Date: Mon, 28 May 2018 01:32:58 +0000
>   (UTC)
>   From: Kathy Bookmiller <wb2aio at yahoo.com>
>   To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
>   Subject: [TowerTalk] eliminating the
>   360 pot in the Ham-m rotators
>   Message-ID: <1878645705.5984595.1527471178921 at mail.yahoo.com>
>   Content-Type: text/plain;
>   charset=UTF-8
>   
>   
>   I thought I saw something a few months
>   back about a mod to the venerable Ham-m. In it the pot would
>   be replaced by some type of counter device triggered by a
>   change to one of the gears. I've looked on their site and
>   don't see any mention of it.
>   At the time I saw this it was said a
>   retrofit kit may become available.
>   Was I dreaming or is this have some
>   truth to it
>   Kathy
>   
>   
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