I can loan you my faithful plastic owl which has never failed in service.
Not for sale due to his ability to find true north at all time regardless of
weather. 73 Gene K2QWD
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bill Fuqua
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 9:14 AM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Wireless tower direction indicator?
I have not been keeping track of this thread but do offer the following
solution to the problem.
Most antennas, even VHF and UHF beams have much more than 15 or 20 degree
beam widths.
One degree resolution is not necessary. I also have a bad resistor in my
tailtwister and have considered solutions to the problem.
This rotator has a pair of limit switches that have wires that come
down to the control box.
If you rotate the antenna and measure the time to go from one limit switch
to the other you can easily estimate its position in between. The speed
varies very little during rotation. One could make an easy substitute for
the resistor using a microcontroller that would simply measure the time the
motor is turned on and calculate the position. It would have to
self-calibrate from time to time measuring the time from for one stop to the
other but it would save repairing or having to climb the tower. Not perfect
but on the other hand good enough in most cases.
73
Bill wa4lav
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