[WriteLog] Rotor Control Suggestion

Fri Jun 6 12:57:19 EDT 2008

> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 08:03:23 EDT
> From: Ed
> Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Rotor Control Suggestion
>> Me believes auto rotor controls are a waste of time for
> contesting and a lot 
> of wear and tear on a rotor.
> Ain't telling you what to do BUT from Michigan for dx
> contests I point my 
> beam to 45° (Europe) in the morning and by noon at 90 a
> little later to 180 
> (south America) then to JA's later in the day. 
> The thing is if you can hear them call, you should be able
> to work them no 
> matter where the Ant is pointed. and no, I don't have
> stacked 6's 
> Yeh! but I need that rare one for a multiplier, Well
> he'll be around later 
> in the contest,and then you will be able to one call him
> instead of knocking 
> heads with the hotdogs running two rigs.and another op just
> for multiplier's.
> ED

I'm with Ed on this -- 99.9% of us likely don't have arrays with a beamwidth so narrow that we need high precision in aiming our antennas. A typical 3 element yagi has something like a 60° (@ -3dB) beamwidth... aiming ain't critical.
On the other hand, instead of having to program beam headings into a database for every prefix, an AGC-driven system (with hysteresis) might be kinda interesting.