My rotator quit indicating. It rotates, but the pot in the motor unit has opened up. I can run outside and see which way it is pointing, but that isn't very elegant, especially since my back and neck are still a little messed up. I need a way to temporarily tell the direction until I get it fixed.
I thought about a camera, but the way our house is arranged, the only window I can put one in faces West and gets direct sun into the lens several hours a day. Its a cheap camera, and it might not hurt anything, but it would make the camera unusable for that time. I could probably get an outdoor-rated camera and point it somewhere out of direct sun. That's the only real solution I can think of.
The antenna and rotator are on a Hazer that only comes down to the garage roof. I can't climb on the roof anymore, so I think the Hazer is going to go away in favor of a more standard configuration. Someone who knows way more than I do is coming by later in the week and will advise me.
I will probably put the Force-12 C3 back up but I sure wish there was something I could do to make it work better, or at least have a better SWR, on 12 meters. I guess a QRO antenna tuner would be the best option. The 4.5 SWR on 12M doesn't make the amp very happy. I have a Dentron tuner that is stout enough, but it does not have a bypass switch. It would probably be easy to rig something with two switches, but that would have the possibility for accidentally running power into an open feed would always be there. The C-3 has two direct coupled elements for 10 meters, and one is for operating FM above 28.9 Mhz. I wish I knew what would happen if I extended that element to make it resonate on 12 meters. I plan to get help to get this all done in one shot, so I don't have the luxury of time for antenna experimentation.
Ideas or comments are welcome!
73,
Dennis