Post Contest Repairs begin
I got on for the 2 meter fall sprint and quickly found out that I couldn’t rotate the antennas. I ended up loosening the rotor bolts and turning the mast to point northeast and working the sprint pointing in that direction the entire time. I still did pretty good and I ended up working a few more contacts on CW since I had to work some stations off the back and side lobes of the beam. Today, Dad and I layed the mast back down on the roof and strapped the antennas down. We unbolted the hinge join and disconnected the steel cable that raises and lowers the mast. Then we disconnected the bolts that provide support on the house bracket we have mounted to the back of the RV and removed the lower mast. After we did that we then removed the rotor plate from its bumper mount that we built and then removed the rotor plate from the bottom of the rotor. We performed several tests but the rotor still would not turn. We then decided to add a tether line to the antenna mast on the roof to ensure that it didn’t go anywhere while we worked this out over the next few days. We will need to locate another HAM-M controller we have and test it to ensure that the starter capacitors aren’t shot in our current controller. Once we rule that out, we will then either open up the rotor and find the source of the problem or test and install one of 3 other HAM-M rotors we have laying around.
On top of this problem, the 6 meter moxon will need to be rebuilt … AGAIN.. The exhaust has some gasket issues, the linkage for putting the car from Drive into second gear is stuck or broke, and there is some squeeling noise on some belt or wheel that seems to be temperature effected. That will need to be looked into as well. But since those repairs will most likely be quite costly, they will have to wait till next year probably. Oh well..
