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Reviews For: HyGain DCU-2 for Ham IV/V and T2X

Category: Antenna Rotators & Accessories

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Review Summary For : HyGain DCU-2 for Ham IV/V and T2X
Reviews: 2MSRP: 399.95
Description:
Digital Rotator Controller
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hy-gain.com/Product.php?productid=DCU-2
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0024
WA1RKT Rating: 2020-01-11
Difficult to get the heading set correctly. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The DCU-2 is mostly OK but the Heading Set control jumps all over the place when trying to set a heading. Turning it right one click, for example, should increment the heading by either one or five depending on how you have it set. Instead it often increments the heading by some random number +/- about 15 or so. Clearly the switch is bouncing and the debounce software is poor or nonexistent. This is with a DCU-2 I bought new from HRO, long enough ago that the warranty is out.

Today I received another DCU-2 that I bought on ebay. It does the same thing, worse than my other one. It is so bad that I was not able to put in my call sign, the switch would jump over the letters I wanted and even after I managed to get it correct, exiting the Setup menu showed something different in the call sign block on the display.

The DCU-2 does what it should and controls the antenna correctly, would get 5 stars if only this problem could be corrected. I'm in a dialog with MFJ and they're trying to help, did offer a suggestion which I tried and it didn't help.

I'll update this review and give it a 5-star rating if we are able to come up with a solution. Meanwhile if any of you know of a solution, please look up my email on qrz.com and send me a note.
W2NLS Rating: 2013-05-31
Excellent Value Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I decided to replace my Ham IV rotator control box with the new DCU-2. My main reason was to use it with Ham Radio Deluxe for near-automatic control of my beam's heading. A lesser reason was for remote control ability using programs such as LogMeIn to add beam control to my remote abilities.

The unit arrived and installed in just a few minutes. It is plug compatible with the rotor cable from the tower on the newer Ham IV's. All I had to do was to unplug my old box and plug in the new. It immediately recognized the current beam heading and worked fine.

The only minor problem was that a USB device cable was not included. (Makes some sense as the unit will operate with either USB or serial). Luckily I had one and already had the drivers (ftd1) installed on my laptop and just plugged in the device cable, checked device manager to find the Com port and Ham Radio Deluxe's (version 6) rotor control saw it fine.

My beam has always been off about 5 or 6 degrees due to installing it off a bit and not wanting to climb up the tower again when it is pretty easy to add 5 to a heading. Now I don't even have to do that. The DCU-2 features an offset setting to auto-correct so that the beam's heading reads correct on the box! Love that feature.

The display is very nice but lacks any contrast or brightess control. This is the unit's only problem I have so far discovered. the display just really needs a contrast control. It is readable for sure but I think it would be improved by that addition.

The only setup problem was the manual says the offset is settable via the menu for -10 to 10 degrees. But actually the newer firmware allows for any offset from 0 to 360 degrees. (So 1 to179 for a plus offset and 181 to 359 for a minus offset). That was a bit confusing but customer support was easily reached by telephone and Tom at HyGain immediately helped out.

Using Ham Radio Deluxe I can log in a call and then it shows the beam heading and all I need to do is to click on that heading and the beam moves! Or, in HRD you can also just click on a world map, or enter the Maidenhead Square and send it to the DCU-2. Or, manually you can operate the box like a regular beam control box but just the CW and CCW keys, no need to manually release or hold a brake release. Or you can just turn the box's encoder knob and program in a beam heading and hit rotate to take the beam there. However you send the command the DCU-2's bright LCD numbers show the actual beam heading changing as it moves.

OK, this is not a critical update to my station. It is really just for fun as I hardly ever operate remotely. But I am finding it to be a treat to use and highly recommend it!