Limited Rotation of Yaesu G-800SDX Rotor - Towertalk Forum at eHam.net

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eHam.net Forum : Towertalk : Limited Rotation of Yaesu G-800SDX Rotor

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Limited Rotation of Yaesu G-800SDX Rotor	Reply
by WB4YDY on November 3, 2009	Mail this to a friend!
I have a Yaesu G-800SDX rotor that has been in use for several years and no problems. Inspected it a few months ago and all looked good from the outside. I used it with no problems a week or so ago in the CQ WWDX SSB contest. Now it will only rotate between 120 and 180 degrees. It will not go past either point. Looking from ground level nothing appears to be binding. I can find nothing in the manual or internet to help trouble shoot this problem. The rotor is 70 feet up and not accessed easily. Any ideas for trouble shooting from the ground would be greatly appreciated! Thanks and 73, Pete, WB4YDY Nolensville, TN

RE: Limited Rotation of Yaesu G-800SDX Rotor	Reply
by WB5JEO on November 3, 2009	Mail this to a friend!
Sounds grim. I've also found that binding isn't always visible from the ground or even very apparent up close. If you have to take it apart and haven't done that before, there's some information here from a fellow ball-bearing chaser. http://www.yccc.org/Scuttlebutt/2000/butt0012.pdf Maybe you're lucky (if you can call it lucky, since it's still 70 feet away in the gravity-afflicted position) and it really is binding or some odd intermittent break in the cable that just happens to open consistently at those points. (Hope springs eternal.) I guess the general rule with rotor problems is to try it with another controller, but I can't see that problem being in the controller, but I guess anything's possible. If it had a lot of time on it, I'd be thinking about hauling a new one up there, but I've become kind of a chicken about heights in my old age. This is where that miserable Yaesu cable connector really bites.

RE: Limited Rotation of Yaesu G-800SDX Rotor	Reply
by WB4YDY on November 3, 2009	Mail this to a friend!
WB5JEO, Thanks for the response, but I don't think it's binding. If I hold down the rotation control switch after the rotor has stopped turning, the motor goes silent. There is no sound like the rotor is trying to push through a bind. I think it is electrical. Is there a way to check the control wires with an ohm meter to get any ideas about what's going on up there electrically? Thanks, Pete, WB4YDY

RE: Limited Rotation of Yaesu G-800SDX Rotor	Reply
by WB5JEO on November 3, 2009	Mail this to a friend!
I guess I'd position it at a point where it was still able to operate, like in the middle of the present working range, disconnect the cable, and see what an ohmmeter showed me. Then I'd run it until it stopped, disconnect, and test again. It might show you if something changed, like an open power lead. Of course the position sensing line resistance will change, since the internal pot in the rotor changed as it was supposed to. It would be nice to know if that was the problem. It wouldn't guarantee that the cable was bad, since there's always some chance it was internal, but it would at least give you a chance to change cable and maybe avoid pulling the rotor, which would be nice at that height. Hopefully, someone more intimately familiar with that one will check by. I have a little trouble buying that the cable would be faulty in just the right way to always stop it at the same spots. I guess you checked to see if the cable's hung up and being stressed at those points.

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