[TowerTalk] Follow on to rotor cable for Prop Pitch

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

I have a 106 foot crank up tower with a K7NV
"small" prop pitch, but I have the special
K7NV remote box at the bottom of the
tower.  Then CAT-5 cable of any length goes to the
Green Heron.  At one time I had well over 300 feet
of CAT-5.  The cable going up the tower is off the
shelf heavy duty rotor cable from Texas Towers.
IIRC, there are two #12 conductors and six #18.
The two #12's go to CW and CCW motor connections,
and four of the #18's in parallel go to the
common motor connection.  The other two #18's
go to the pulse generator.

The prop pitch being DC, there are no capacitors.
There is also no wedge brake.  Hence there is no
exact requirement for wire gauge vs distance.
You just gradually lose speed.

The rotor cable is taped every foot or so in a
bundle with the RG-218 coax and the SteppIR control
cable.  The bundle passes freely through the loops
on the ends of the arms and coils up on the ground
guided by my hands when the tower is retracted.

This scheme has worked extremely well for me for
over 10 years.

Rick N6RK


On 12/9/2019 8:49 PM, Mac wrote:
> Much like Elliott, I am also in the midst of rebuilding my rotor mast 
> antenna system. I am using a Prop Pitch and a Green Heron prop pitch 
> rotor controller.
> 
> I'm comfortable with my wiring from the shack to the tower base. My need 
> and concern centers from the tower base up to the actual PP location via 
> a crank up tower totaling 85' to the rotor location and what types or 
> forms of actual wire to carry the PP current and of course the much 
> smaller mag pulse feed signal.
> 
> I plan to use the loop fixtures that contain the coax feed lines and 
> rotor wiring as well keep the lines sorted and in some order where i 
> avoid tangles and radical bends.