Hello Don, Lloyd, et all.
When I had the big tower with larger HF arrays I used Tailtwisters and never
lost one to wind, etc. My antenna systems never had the rotor high up in the
tower near the antennas... I always had a top thrust bearing and a second one
about 8' down inside the tower. I mounted the Rotor about 25' below inside the
tower and coupled it to the main mast with a torque tube.
All the connections between the torque tube and the main mast used a #9 tapered
steel pin. The center bolt in the rotor was replaced with a tapered steel pin.
I bought a tapered bit to fit the pins properly and drilled everything with it.
Once the pin is inserted it takes one tap with a hammer to set it and it will
never come out by itself! Yet, it only takes a few taps with a hammer on the
tapered end to to remove it!
My two cents!
73 de
N3RG Ray
> On 07/31/2023 8:58 AM EDT Lloyd Berg <lloyd.n9lb@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hello Don,
> When I was younger, and my knees were better, I helped out the locals with
> tower maintenance services.
>
> I found that people who did NOT "Pin" the mast pipe to the rotor
> occasionally had problems with mast orientation slippage.
>
> I also found that people who did "Pin" the mast pipe to the rotor
> frequently had torn up the gears in the rotor. ( usually resulting in the
> mast/antenna array "freewheeling" which would tear up the rotor loop cables
> and antenna feedpoints. )
>
> It is a whole lot easier and way less expensive to re-align the antenna
> direction after a windstorm than replacing the rotor, rotor loop, feed
> point attachment, etc. ( did you ever notice all the "rotor rebuilding
> services" out there? )
>
> 73
>
> Lloyd - N9LB
>
> On Sun, Jul 30, 2023 at 12:24 PM Donald Fox via VHFcontesting <
> vhfcontesting@contesting.com> wrote:
>
> > Along with the new towers here at the new QTH, I've upgraded from Ham 3 to
> > Tailtwister rotors. You might recall that the smaller Ham/CDE rotors had a
> > threaded hole and bolt in the center of the clamping plate to help keep the
> > mast pipe from turning independently of the rotor.
> >
> > The TT has a hole for a 3/8s ish bolt to "pin" the the mast. I had not
> > done that, thinking it would not be an issue with the larger clamp
> > hardware. We have some pretty good winds here, and the MP does not want to
> > stay put! I do crank on the SS clamps a fair amount, but am concerned about
> > stretching/galling them. We all know what a mess that is, especially 40
> > feet in the air.
> >
> > Feedback from TT users and what you experienced are appreciated. Feel free
> > to reply directly if you wish.
> >
> > TIA
> >
> > Don N8ECH
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> >
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