Notification to members of rotator expenditure

MARS members: As you may know, we have a great club station in process. We have 60 feet of tower up in the air with a three-element tri-bander (20,15 and 10 meters), and an off center fed dipole for the other HF bands. We also have a 70 cm repeater up and running at Farmer Fire Station #2.

We are using a Flex 6600 for the HF rig.

I (WØJMP) outfitted the station with an older Hy-Gain/CDE rotator and updated the control box with new features and RS232/USB interface so it could be remote operated. While this was a very inexpensive way to have the rotator we needed, it failed and I am fairly sure the failure is inside the rotator. While I am confident that I could repair it and have it working again, it is still an old rotator and may be subject to future failure. Going up and down the tower to remove and repair a rotator is not fun.

The board (including me) decided to update the rotator with a new modern unit to increase reliability. We will also use an interface to allow remote operation. The rotator is a Yaesu 800GXA and we are adding a control board from Ham Supply/Idiom press. Since our next meeting is not until March, we decided to make the decision to buy the equipment with a vote of the board. The vote was unanimous for buying the new rotator and it will be here about February 1st.

The new rotator and control cost $688.97. We have adequate cash in our account to cover this expense.