Big rotators

 

Rotor systems are often a problem for building a bigger array.

During summer many hams put up bigger antennas and during first October storm the rotor bites the dust.

In the beginning when I started with ham radio I used Kenpro Kr600 (Yaesu) rotators. It was big enough to turn my one yagi. When I upgraded to 4 yagi’s the problems started!

I upgraded to a 380 volts motor and a gear box and the problems where solved until today!

In my other two towers I used Create RC5a rotators. These are fine rotators but as always there is a limit. When I put up the Force 12 C31XR yagi I had reached the limit of the Create rotator. I discovered that in high winds I could not rotate the yagi anymore or very difficult. I decided to replace them before they went out of service.

So I needed bigger rotators. After some searching I found a company in Italy called Prosistel. They sell very big rotors.

Take a look at these figures and you will see the big difference.

The main problem was that they are so big that the would not fit in a normal head unit of a Versatower

John PA3FSA build me a new head unit.

The tower head units


Left the normal Versatower head unit with the Create RC5a rotator.

This rotator did a very good job. I did NOT replace it because it is broken but I was sure that this one would not make it on the long term as the yagi’s in my tower get bigger and bigger as time goes by.

At the right the new head unit specially designed and built by Johnny, PA3FSA.

With the help from Johan, PE9DX, we replaced the antennas and head unit in one day for each tower.



Of course the fine tuning etc. took a few days more.

The rotators by Prosistel

Below the rotators used, two Prosistel PST71 rotators.