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Re: [TowerTalk] wireless rotor

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Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] wireless rotor
From: "Patrick Greenlee" <patrick_g@windstream.net>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:17:07 -0500
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
I have the LDG AT-1000 Pro II tuner with accessory analog meter. I would like to remote the meter and the push buttons (in the shack) so the tuner can be closer to the antenna farm. Has anyone tried this? What success, what method?

When asked, the guys at LDG say you can remote the meter a "few" feet. So we are on our own fellow LDG remoters!

If I am to be a/the pioneer I will try to remote the push buttons by paralleling them with momentary contact push buttons. First I will try to gun the meter via the candidate remote cable (plain wire, no other components). If line losses interfere too much then I'll have to coble up an integrated circuit op-amp to be a buffer. No doubt there is a high probability of needing to do some filtering for RFI, maybe caps on the switches and some RF chokes if needed (beads?)

A simple way to remote the LED lamps would be to physically move them. Better would be to add a panel of LED's with each one having a "twin" in series with those in the meter box. This would reduce the intensity but not enough to cause problems as I don't anticipate using the remote out in full sunlight, just a comfortably lit radio shack. I would run the remoting cable via a buried conduit not shared with coax.

Any suggestions, recommendations, prescriptions, warnings, encouragement, psychiatric counseling... ;) ;)


73 and TIA for any comments,

Patrick AF5CK

-----Original Message----- From: Jim Lux
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:49 PM
Cc: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] wireless rotor

On 4/10/13 1:44 PM, Jack Brindle wrote:
Maybe.

Putting a major noise source (micro controller with lots of high-speed clocks) right at the single most important quiet area might not be that good of an idea. Adding chokes and bypass caps to knock down the noise can only go so far. I'd rather not have the noise generator at the antenna in any case.

Which brings up the question, what kind of birdies and noise does the Green Heron and similar devices add?


It's not all that tough. The things don't radiate all that much, and
putting them in a decent box with appropriate feed throughs works pretty
well.

I'm running the Velleman relay board into a RCS-8V and sending RS232 to
a LDG antenna tuner.  The computer and relay board is in a regular sheet
metal aluminum box with a SMA feed through for the WiFi antenna.  The
relay control lines and the RS232 are both run through a filtered D sub
connector that I happened to have, but realistically, the filter isn't
all that great down low.

I think the saving grace is that the CPU clock frequency is 16 MHz, so
most of the noise is well above the HF band, and in any case, none of
the harmonics fall in ham bands.  ANd for my newer work, I'm using
Teensy3 computers (smaller than Arduino, faster, and cheaper) which have
a 50 MHz clock.

Granted, I'm in a suburban residential area with a fairly high hash
level overall.
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