Prosistel Rotor Alignment Hint
Here is a tip for installing and aligning a Prosistel (BigBoy) PST-61D rotator… Set the rotor control box to a known setting prior to installing your antennas. Unfortunately, I did things a bit backwards. In my case, we cabled and tested the rotor and controller on the ground (makes sense). We installed the rotor on the tower on the day we raised the tower. Weeks later, we installed the antennas.
When Dave setup the antennas - he pointed them due north (000 degrees). Unfortunately, I had left the control box at
about 110 degrees. I had figured that this controller was fully adjustable and if my settings were off I could recalibrate the heading on the control box. This is true to a certain extent.
The Prosistel rotor controller only can compensate for a heading (offset) of + or - 70 degrees. So, there was really no way to working around this other than another trip up the tower for poor Dave. Actually, I’m writing this from the Denver airport - while Dave is at my house on the tower doing this! (Dave’s a great guy)
Anyway, lesson learned.
On a positive note though, the support from ArraySolutions was great. I managed to somehow corrupt my installation of the Prosistel (RS232) controller software. Jay spent some time helping me through it and that was appreciated.