Up to Fleetwood, NC yesterday, to visit old pal K2SD’s QTH & swap out his old Ham-M with a brand new T2X (TailTwister) rotator. Typically, these things take about an hour & a half. And at that point in time aloft, I was just reaching around the rotator to install the mast clamp. Which wouldn’t fit. The holes drilled in the clamp would not accept the U-bolt threads, no matter what I tried. And believe me, I tried every trick I knew. But I finally gave up & sent the clamp down to Scott to re-drill. I could have climbed down myself, drilled the clamp, then climbed back up. But every bit of work in these mountains takes longer than you think, because you’re coming from an 600-800 ft sea level atmosphere, to something closer to 4000 ft, & the exertion factor closes in on you much more quickly. So, even though Scott’s legally blind, I figured he could do the drilling, just at the expense of time, & this proved to be true.
Once the clamp was in place, I very carefully noted the wiring. The cable from the rotator itself used different cabling, so I had duly noted the color changes on a little piece of paper, & carefully (!) checked them multiple times as I made the connections to the EU Molex connector. With one final check, I climbed down & headed for the shack.
With everything wired up, I reached out & snapped the toggle switch. The pilot light came on, but that was it. Nothing, nada, the control box didn’t turn anything. The soldenoid engaged, but no indication. So began the fun of trying to figure out what was wrong. I even made a climb back up the tower, trying to find the trouble. Finally, after three hours of trying this & that, I hooked up the old Ham-series control. You guessed it, perfection, no trouble or problem whatsoever! The T2X controller was not working, brand new out-of-the-box! I hate to say it, but yet another MFJ foulup, hard on the heels of the missing XM-240 Cushcraft inventory from WG5H’s job in Texas last month.
I think I’ll try to determine what the trouble may be, but then we’ll see how good their warranty service is. I am not (necessarily) confident there either.
stay tuned….
