[amsat-bb] Rotor Problems: A story

[Bruce Nolte N3LSY <brucenol@xxxxxxx>]

I am in high gear thinking about rotor problems, and I want to relate an 
experience I had with an old Ham-M that sits atop my tower. I got it 
used, in decent shape a few years ago, and regreased it with some nice 
heavy Disk Brake wheel bearing grease ( the green stuff) before putting 
it into service under a fair size set of antlers that included a TH3, a 
3 element 6 meter beam, a 13B2, and an 11 element 440  beam, topped off 
with a ARX2B vertical. For most of the year, things worked well, except 
in extremely cold weather. I wrote this off to stiff grease or coaxes, 
but the situation gradually got worse, until it did not move at all.

I dropped the tower and pulled the rotor out and inspected it. I found 
no serious mechanical problems but noticed that the motor would barely 
turn even unencumbered. Bottom line was a bad motor starter capacitor, 
which sits in the control box. I replaced it with one out of a junked TV 
rotor box I had  that was about 10 years newer than the one in my 1965 
vintage Ham M box, and suddenly I had enough torque to turn the array in 
a 30 mile per hour wind.

Just some food for thought if you are having trouble with an older rotor.

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