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Old 6th Mar 2018, 11:03 am   #1
stevehertz
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Default Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Having just searched, I'm quite surprised that no-one has yet produced a commercially available, decent quality aerial rotator that is wireless controlled. Most people already have mains in the loft to power a rotator, and they have their existing RF coax feed down to the living room, or wherever. All that is needed is the control signal. The problem with installing an aerial rotator is that you need to install - with all the damage to walls, ceilings etc etc - a control signal cable from your hifi system in say a downstairs room up through the ceiling to the upper floor, up again into the loft, and up again to the rotator! That's a lot of channeling, drilling, lifting floorboards, carpets, getting behind skirting boards.. pause for breath.. and redecorating work! That's redecorating complete rooms in some cases, taking several days if not weeks if not done in one go. Er, no. Surely it's not beyond existing technologies to produce (for example) a Bluetooth controlled system that only needs the power to the rotator from the loft to be added?! (plus mounting the rotator itself of course). Encoding should avoid false operation.

If you know of one, please provide a link! Otherwise before anyone suggests it, I'm not into DIYing this type of thing, cobbling something together using modules, limit switches and stuff. I want an 'out of the box' unit, and there ain't one! Truth is, I manage very well without a rotator, so for me this isn't a must have piece of equipment, but something to consider as it would gild the lily being able to pull in a few more stations and listen to some others with improved S/N. No, given the nature of this subject (aerials, transmitters, receivers, RF etc) I find it really surprising that someone has not already produced a commercial system.

Out of interest this guy here has DIY'd his own system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lTU7OJVIzE
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 1:23 pm   #2
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

The closest that comes (came) close to that was the Eagle Aspen ROTR100 One-Cable Antenna Rotator.

It used the existing coax to the antenna to feed the control signals to the rotator.

Unfortunately, it appears to now be discontinued.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 1:46 pm   #3
David G4EBT
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

It's not so much a 'control signal' - it's the fact that the controller is an integral but remote part of the rotator circuitry.

Rotators - leastways all the ones that I've had over the years, such as the 'AR40' function on the bridge principle. The controller is little more than a potentiometer. If the rotator is at rest in say the East position, the bridge is balanced so no current will flow to the motor. If you move the controller pot to say South, it unbalances the bridge so current flows to the rotator motor until the bridge comes back into balance, then the rotator stops. Obviously there's rather more to the circuitry than that. In the case of the AR40, there are five low voltage wires - the original wire being flat.

I've had rotators at four locations until I lost interest in amateur radio. All I did was to run the controller wire down the outside wall alongside the coax to the operating position.

The DIY guy didn't seem to be using a conventional 'rotator' as such - just a motor which would rotate in either direction and at the end of travel, could be reversed, to which he could turn off the power remotely. Not sure how - unless he could actually see the rotator through the window or whatever - how he'd know what point of the compass it was at. (It was back in 2010, so maybe things have moved on a bit since then?)

My first rotator was an ex WD motor from an aeroplane that had operated the ailerons.

I could reverse its direction, and I made a direction indicator using a 3" glassfibre tube with several reed relays glued to the inside of the tube and the tube slide down and held in position to be concentric with the rotating antenna tube. A magnet fixed on the antenna tube operated each reed relay as it passed. The relays were connected to a 1mA analogue meter via resistors of differing values and a battery in series, so that the needle would move across to NSEW on the meter dial according to how much current flowed through the meter.

That was back in the late 1970s when I was first licensed and lived on the outskirts of Grimsby. I used it to rotate a home-made 'ZL Special' 2 Metre antenna. It was back in the days when there were fewer amateurs but lots more on-air activity. I could point it inland to work UK stations, to the north, south or west, or east to Holland to work Dutch amateurs on 2 M SSB. It was fun for a while. Also had a modified Pye Cambridge.

Some forum members might know of John Geaney - a skilled Irish restorer and constructor who lives in Geneva. I'm not sure if he's active on forums these days, but he is on on youtube, where he goes by the name of 'Zone1242'. This youtube video he made about his experiences with a rotator might be of interest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsX-CooZ-dQ

This one is on the same theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ettnuLDN9R8

Sorry this doesn't answer your central question, but hope it's of interest.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 2:06 pm   #4
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Is it worth a good look on USA ebay or similar sites ?
In the USA, the many TV channels are often broadcast from transmitters in different locations.
Therefore selecting a different TV channel may mean rotating the aerial to pick up another transmitter.

There is therefore a much greater market for aerial rotators in America than in the UK.
Most types need a control wire, but if anyone HAS made a cordless one, it seems likely to have been for the USA market.

Cable TV is rapidly taking over from broadcasts in America, but only fairly recently, so rotators should still be available.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 4:21 pm   #5
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry_VK5TM View Post
The closest that comes (came) close to that was the Eagle Aspen ROTR100 One-Cable Antenna Rotator.

It used the existing coax to the antenna to feed the control signals to the rotator.

Unfortunately, it appears to now be discontinued.
Yes I've seen that one. It's all ok if - as I see it - you're only using a single downlead. My downlead enters a distribution amp that wouldn't take kindly to power supply volts being fed into it - at either input or output.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 4:22 pm   #6
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Quote:
Originally Posted by broadgage View Post
Is it worth a good look on USA ebay or similar sites ?
In the USA, the many TV channels are often broadcast from transmitters in different locations.
Therefore selecting a different TV channel may mean rotating the aerial to pick up another transmitter.

There is therefore a much greater market for aerial rotators in America than in the UK.
Most types need a control wire, but if anyone HAS made a cordless one, it seems likely to have been for the USA market.

Cable TV is rapidly taking over from broadcasts in America, but only fairly recently, so rotators should still be available.
Like I say, I have searched, and nothing came up.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 4:23 pm   #7
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Thanks for your input David, interesting stuff.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 5:28 pm   #8
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Not necessarily "wireless" rotator control but have a look at DiSEqC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiSEqC

which is what people with satellite-TV use so they can steer the dish to point at the right sat.

Power and control signals up the same coax as the signal-return. Been around for a couple of decades.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 5:56 pm   #9
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Someone should design that and put it into production PDQ.
Control by app on your phone. Why hasn't it been done
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 6:34 pm   #10
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_G4MDC View Post
Someone should design that and put it into production PDQ.
Control by app on your phone. Why hasn't it been done
My thoughts too!!
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 6:43 pm   #11
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_G4MDC View Post
Someone should design that and put it into production PDQ.
Control by app on your phone. Why hasn't it been done
Connect the antenna coax to the phone and use the phone's built-in FM-radio capability. Job done!
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 6:51 pm   #12
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

A problem I can think of is what frequency do you use for the control signal, unlicensed bands use very low power. Presuming the rotator is outside as high as possible, Blue tooth frequency from inside the house may not work, the 430MHz region may have similar problems. For manufacturer to produce something it must work in most situations or they will just get returned.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 7:15 pm   #13
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Given that you've got a coax going from the [presumed] control-point to the antenna - passing the rotator in the process - it's clearly not going to be beyond the wit of man to squirt a very-low-power RF signal up this, in the same way as the Sky 'magic eye' things feed RF from the 'eye' that detects the remote-control signal back to the Sky-box itself (in a different room/part of the house) down the coax that's also taking the telly picture from the Sky-box to the telly.

These 'eyes' operate on 7MHz.

I'm not aware of any interference to/from other users of the frequencies.
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Old 6th Mar 2018, 7:37 pm   #14
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Sorry - but I think you might have missed what was being suggested.
If I can change my mood lighting over wi-fi from my phone, why can't I point my antenna?

I want one. Except somebody might hack it and send it round and round in circles so breaking my coax..
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Old 7th Mar 2018, 1:09 am   #15
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

In the 1970's I made up one that for my FM loft aerial (a simple horizontal dipole) so I could null out the local BBC transmitters to receive continental FM stations. Reception of a couple of French stations in stereo was usually possible. It used a Swiss 3V geared motor (probably one I got from Proops) controlled by a single pole centre-off centre-biassed switch to determine the direction of rotation, and I fitted microswitches to limit the rotation angle to about 400° to prevent straining the coax, with diodes connected so that the motor could be reversed when the limit had been reached, and a DC block at the tuner end. It was just a question of rotating it until the null was achieved so for my purposes I didn't need to know the bearing of the aerial. Once the FM band started filling up with commercial and local radio and the occasional pirate, there was no longer any point in using it.
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Old 7th Mar 2018, 6:04 am   #16
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Default Re: Wireless controlled aerial rotator?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_G4MDC View Post
Someone should design that and put it into production PDQ.
Control by app on your phone. Why hasn't it been done
Already done. Second one is DIY, not sure about other.
Plenty more out there.
They haven't done the wifi/bluetooth bit between downstairs and rotator (and I don't have a rotator to work with, otherwise I might be inclined to give it a go).
First one I think works via internet to a remote rotator (I didn't turn up the sound).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cID8TzHu_k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4qAOco8et8

I think I saw a usb controlled one at some stage which may work over a wireless usb link system.
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