rotor cable voltage drop
 

I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet. I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna &
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of the
un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage drop on appx. 500ft of 22
ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can somebody either reply with the
typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or first hand knowledge of the
correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks Jeff

rotor cable voltage drop
 

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet. I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna &
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of
the un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage drop on appx. 500ft
of 22 ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can somebody either reply
with the typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or first hand knowledge
of the correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks Jeff


I wonder if a larger conduit would be desirable for a larger diameter
co-axes, else the losses might be
unacceptable and to fit all these cable in - is it OK to run these so
closely together over such a long distance ?

Nick

rotor cable voltage drop
 

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet. I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna &
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of
the un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage drop on appx. 500ft
of 22 ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can somebody either reply
with the typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or first hand knowledge
of the correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks Jeff


Hi, Jeff -

I could find only one rotator on the Channel Master Web site. The manual for
it is
http://www.pctinternational.com/chan...al_9521_37.pdf
and page 1 tells required wire size vs length. Looks like you need 18ga.

Cheers,
John KD5YI

rotor cable voltage drop
 

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 07:25:26 -0500, Jeff Dieterle wrote:
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet. I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna &
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of the
un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage drop on appx. 500ft of 22
ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can somebody either reply with the
typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or first hand knowledge of the
correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks Jeff



--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: http://jonz.net/ng.htm

rotor cable voltage drop
 

Nick wrote:
"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet.


Also, be aware that many of these rotors are
Capacitor Start motors. So, where is the
Capacitor? Well, its in the Control Box
(to make it simple to get to, when it ages/or
gives up). Tho these are easy to access, my
question would also be (since these cap leads
are quite long, and RESISTIVE to get to the
rotor), is just what effect these long (thus
HIGHer) resistance and thus, volts limiting going
to do to the rotor speed ? I hope I stated this
correctly. Anyone have experience with this? Jim
NN7K

rotor cable voltage drop
 

Hi John KD5YI,
Thanks for the link. That's the info I needed.
Jeff

"_._ _.. ..... _.__ .." wrote in message
news:7uAdi.1520$AR5.1490@trnddc06...

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet.
I've buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the
antenna & satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga.
wire will control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power
requirements yet of the un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage
drop on appx. 500ft of 22 ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can
somebody either reply with the typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or
first hand knowledge of the correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks
Jeff


Hi, Jeff -

I could find only one rotator on the Channel Master Web site. The manual
for it is
http://www.pctinternational.com/chan...al_9521_37.pdf
and page 1 tells required wire size vs length. Looks like you need 18ga.

Cheers,
John KD5YI

rotor cable voltage drop
 

Hi Nick,
Not sure where you going with the larger conduit and what type of losses.
From my limited knowledge, conduit fill is a function of the rated wire
ampacity and the resultant I-sqr'd-R loss if the wire is pushed to rated
ampacity, which shouldn't be an issue on the coax, and a later poster
replied with the correct rotor wire size. If you talking about signal loss
on RG6 over that distance I've had that cable laying on the ground to the
tower location for a couple of years and get a strong signal, physical
damage to the exposed wire is the problem. I assumed the coax shielding,
properly grounded would take care of problems running in the same conduit
with Sat. TV and Rotor wiring
Please reply if you have more insight on this.
Thanks Jeff


"Nick" wrote in message
...

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet.
I've buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the
antenna & satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga.
wire will control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power
requirements yet of the un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage
drop on appx. 500ft of 22 ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can
somebody either reply with the typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or
first hand knowledge of the correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks
Jeff


I wonder if a larger conduit would be desirable for a larger diameter
co-axes, else the losses might be
unacceptable and to fit all these cable in - is it OK to run these so
closely together over such a long distance ?

Nick

rotor cable voltage drop
 

On 18 Jun 2007 21:40:29 GMT, Allodoxaphobia wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 07:25:26 -0500, Jeff Dieterle wrote:
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet. I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna &
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of the
un-purchased rotor I can't calculate the voltage drop on appx. 500ft of 22
ga wire to see if it will be sufficient. Can somebody either reply with the
typical C M rotor current/voltage/watts or first hand knowledge of the
correct wire gauge for a 500ft run. Thanks Jeff

[ Dunno what happened to the text of my original followup, so ... ]

What I do is wait for one of the Big Box Stores to have a loss leader
sale on 100' extension cords. They'll usually be 16 ga. -- sometimes
you'll see 14 ga. My rotator requires 5-conductor -- so I buy two
100-footers and parallel the two green wires -- which are usually a
smaller guage than the other two.

WFM
HTH
73
Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: http://jonz.net/ng.htm

rotor cable voltage drop
 

I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet. I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna &
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of the
I use all Ham-3 and Ham-4 type rotators which need 8 conductors. Only
two of those (which run the motor) need to be larger size. For long runs to
the tower I use Romex #14 for the motor wires and CAT5 for the other 6.
Cheaper than buying "heavy-duty" rotator cable.

BTW on VHF/UHF you probably want some serious hardline for the RF link if
you are looking at a 500' cable run.

Tor
N4OGW

rotor cable voltage drop
 

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
Hi Nick,
Not sure where you going with the larger conduit and what type of losses.
From my limited knowledge, conduit fill is a function of the rated wire
ampacity and the resultant I-sqr'd-R loss if the wire is pushed to rated
ampacity, which shouldn't be an issue on the coax, and a later poster
replied with the correct rotor wire size. If you talking about signal
loss on RG6 over that distance I've had that cable laying on the ground to
the tower location for a couple of years and get a strong signal, physical
damage to the exposed wire is the problem. I assumed the coax shielding,
properly grounded would take care of problems running in the same conduit
with Sat. TV and Rotor wiring
Please reply if you have more insight on this.
Thanks Jeff


Hi Jeff,

I may have read it wrong, but I understand that the run from the shack to
the tower
is some 400 feet, and the conduit is one inch diameter...

This to take a feeder ( presumably co-ax) and a rotator control cable and
possibly a separate
co-ax for the satellite ?

I would have thought the co-ax would have to be quite a large diameter to
minimise losses, and this
with the other one (or two ?) cables down a 1" conduit that long just struck
me as completely impossible
and possibly undesirable from interaction effects ?

Nick

rotor cable voltage drop
 

Man you gotta help me here....

BTW on VHF/UHF you probably want some serious hardline for the RF link if
you are looking at a 500' cable run.

I'm just an old retired grunt electrician
Thanks
Jeff

wrote in message
...
I'm installing a 60ft tower about 400ft from my house for uhf/vhf. I'm
planning to use a Channel Master rotor which I haven't purchased yet.
I've
buried 1"pvc conduit to tower and planning the wire pull for the antenna
&
satellite coax plus the rotor cable. From my research 3c/22ga. wire will
control all C M rotors. Since I don't know the power requirements yet of
the
I use all Ham-3 and Ham-4 type rotators which need 8 conductors. Only
two of those (which run the motor) need to be larger size. For long runs
to
the tower I use Romex #14 for the motor wires and CAT5 for the other 6.
Cheaper than buying "heavy-duty" rotator cable.

BTW on VHF/UHF you probably want some serious hardline for the RF link if
you are looking at a 500' cable run.

Tor
N4OGW

rotor cable voltage drop
 

Nick
I'm not concerned with the wire pull, I'll come out of the ground to a pull
box at the 1/2 way point and the 1"C will be large enough, with plenty of
soap I should be able to pull it by hand. But can you expound on your
concerns with the interaction effects.
Thanks
Jeff

"Nick" wrote in message
...

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
Hi Nick,
Not sure where you going with the larger conduit and what type of losses.
From my limited knowledge, conduit fill is a function of the rated wire
ampacity and the resultant I-sqr'd-R loss if the wire is pushed to rated
ampacity, which shouldn't be an issue on the coax, and a later poster
replied with the correct rotor wire size. If you talking about signal
loss on RG6 over that distance I've had that cable laying on the ground
to the tower location for a couple of years and get a strong signal,
physical damage to the exposed wire is the problem. I assumed the coax
shielding, properly grounded would take care of problems running in the
same conduit with Sat. TV and Rotor wiring
Please reply if you have more insight on this.
Thanks Jeff


Hi Jeff,

I may have read it wrong, but I understand that the run from the shack to
the tower
is some 400 feet, and the conduit is one inch diameter...

This to take a feeder ( presumably co-ax) and a rotator control cable and
possibly a separate
co-ax for the satellite ?

I would have thought the co-ax would have to be quite a large diameter to
minimise losses, and this
with the other one (or two ?) cables down a 1" conduit that long just
struck me as completely impossible
and possibly undesirable from interaction effects ?

Nick

rotor cable voltage drop
 

"Jeff Dieterle" wrote in message
...
Nick
I'm not concerned with the wire pull, I'll come out of the ground to a
pull box at the 1/2 way point and the 1"C will be large enough, with
plenty of soap I should be able to pull it by hand. But can you expound on
your concerns with the interaction effects.
Thanks
Jeff

I really don't know what, if any, there might be - bad swr would be worse
than good
of course but perhaps that will be sorted at the antenna end anyway -
inductive coupling
perhaps ?

All the best - looking forward to the update with results !

Nick