Ham Radio - A contact sport

We spent all day on Saturday taking down the rotator, antennas and assessing the damage done by lightning to my amateur radio station. In short, Dave (KIØQ) spent much of the day on the tower and Rick (N0CFL), my father-in-law, XYL and I worked ground crew.

Weather was nearly perfect (no wind, ~82 degrees) and we were able to get everything safely on the ground without a major incident.

What we learned…

• Prosistel PST-61D rotator motor works (12Vdc will turn the motor) but the heading indicator (pot) was giving bad readings (~91 ohms). I was able to open the bottom rotator cover and found 4 fried MOVs (see pic).  Per instructions from Jay @ ArraySolutions, I have cut these off of the potentiometer and the readings are now normal. Lightning protection for the rotator will continue to be the ICE rotator line transient suppressor mounted at the tower base.
• The 4 element SteppIR could not be tested as the replacement control box has not yet arrived from the factory. However, we did notice deterioration of the rubber coupling “boots”.  Apparently, SteppIR had a supplier issue with these that has now been resolved. For some period, there were antennas shipped with these rubber (plumbing) couplers that were prone to UV damage.  I need to replace these - and I need to test the antenna itself.
• The AlphaDelta DX-B 1/4 wave sloper was removed.  Again, I had low expectations for this antenna and was never really happy with it (even though it only cost me $15).  I now have the parts for my 80 meter and 160 meter inverted Ls.
• The Cushcraft XM-240 two element 40 meter yagi  still needs to be thoroughly inspected and tested. It’s now sitting on two sawhorses over the SteppIR. SWR does not look good - but there could be many reasons for that, including the MJF 259 antenna analyzer issues from nearby broadcast antennas that I saw last fall and proximity to ground.

There is certainly a lot of work ahead, but thanks to some great help from some local hams, I now have a better idea of what needs to be done.