[amsat-bb] Re: Yaesu 5500 rotor problem

[John P. Toscano]

Jim Sanford wrote:

> I was able to REPAIR the position pot by resoldering the the very 
> flexible lead to the center.  I then used a piece of tape to act as a 
> strain relief so that the torque and motion would NOT be transmitted to 
> the solder joint, but would be absorbed over the length of the wire.  It 
> has worked fine ever since.

A few hours before the start of the January 2006 VHF contest, as I was 
turning on all my radios, transverters, etc. to get ready, I was 
horrified to see that the antenna position indicator on my Yaesu 
G-1000SDX started rotating itself all the way to the stop and stayed 
there if I used the preset button to tell it to go to any particular 
azimuth. By turning it off and on, I regained minimal control -- I could 
turn the antennas, but the position indicator stayed at the stop no 
matter where the antennas pointed. I figured I was screwed, as I had no 
intention of falling off an icy roof to climb my rooftop tower in the 
middle of a Minnesota winter, and even if I did, there would be no way 
I'd repair the thing in time for the contest, and no way I'd get one of 
my kids to volunteer to stand out in the cold and tell me which way the 
antennas were pointed every time I wanted to aim in a new direction.

Then, as I was preparing to shut everything off and give up, I was 
looking at the tangled mess of cables behind my stack of radio gear, and 
much to my surprise, found that the rotator cable plug was not seated 
firmly into the back of the rotator controller. I pushed it all the way 
in, and it has worked perfectly ever since. Apparently the connection 
was "good enough" to the lines that controlled the rotation motors, but 
not "good enough" to the line that brings back the feedback 
potentiometer setting.

Maybe, just MAYBE, you will get lucky that way too. It certainly costs 
nothing to check!

73 de W0JT