[WriteLog] Rotor Control Suggestion

[Bryan Swadener]

> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 08:03:23 EDT
> From: Ed
> Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Rotor Control Suggestion
> 
> Me believes auto rotor controls are a waste of time for
> contesting and a  lot 
> of wear and tear on a rotor.
> Ain't telling you what to do BUT from Michigan for dx
> contests I  point my 
> beam to 45° (Europe) in the morning and by noon at 90 a
> little  later to 180 
> (south America) then to JA's later in the day. 
> The thing is if you can hear them call, you should be able
> to work them no  
> matter where the Ant is pointed. and no, I don't have
> stacked 6's 
> Yeh! but I need that rare one for a multiplier, Well
> he'll be around  later 
> in the contest,and then you will be able to one call him
> instead of  knocking 
> heads with the hotdogs running two rigs.and another op just
> for  multiplier's.
> ED

I'm with Ed on this -- 99.9% of us likely don't have arrays with a beamwidth so narrow that we need high precision in aiming our antennas.  A typical 3 element yagi has something like a 60° (@ -3dB) beamwidth... aiming ain't critical.

On the other hand, instead of having to program beam headings into a database for every prefix, an AGC-driven system (with hysteresis) might be kinda interesting.