Antenna Rotor expert needed

[jmagerl]

My TV antenna is (or I should say was) controlled by an Alliance U110 antenna rotor. My wonderful brother knocked the control head off of its shelf and all the wires to the motor came off.

The terminals are labeled 1,2,3,4 and the wires are red, green, white, black, hence the problem. WHich wire goes to which terminal.

here is a link to the instruction manual with schematic.

[e-mail] IS there any way using an ohmmeter to identify at least one wire? Is it safe to try all 24 different combinations without blowing something up?

The wires on the motor end are not visible from the ground (its 40 ft up) and its not feasable to pull the antenna down without 30 people to help. (Did I say Pizza party?)

Theres a lesson here....record wire information and put it in a safe spot....no thats not it...Dont let let your freakin brother near your stuff!!! yeah...thats it.

[Ralph Mowery]

If you use an ohmmeter , one wire will probably show open depending on where the rotator is. That will be your number 4 wire. Then you can try the other wires on the first 3 terminals. It will be ok to hook them up and plug in to the wall and try to turn it for a few seconds.

[Norminn]

Don't let your wife near your freaking computer stuff, either. Hubby always has had twice as many wires to hook up stuff as a normal person has, so whilst he was indisposed for a week, I cleaned the computer lab. So many darn phone plugs, I took out all the "spares" and put them in a drawer. Including DSL filters. Who knew? At least I got rid of the cracked 3-in-1 plug that hooked onto a three prong extension cord that plugged into a two-prong ext. cord that ran under the mattress to the plug-in strip on other side of the bedroom.

[RLM]

From what I see in the PDF file it appears as if the person that installed the antenna rotor made a note that the black wire goes on terminal 3 and the white wire should be connected to terminal 4 in Fig.7 and would be connected to the same respective terminals on the rear of the controller in Fig 16.

The red and green wires go to terminals 1 and 2 at the controller. If the antenna points in the opposite direction switch the red and green wires between terminals 1 and 2 and retry.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Unless you climb the tower and take note of what color wire is on which terminal it,s pretty tough to guess. LONG shot guess is per electronic color code scheme. 1 black, 2 red, 3 green 4 white.

[larry]

Three leasd are to the motor, one is "ground" the other two should be near identical resistance. ohm the three leads. highest reading between two leads is the two coil leads, the other should be 1/2 the resistance and is ground. the forth is the "clicker" lead that pulses as the motor turns. you might need to flip the two coils, if the motor rotates the wrong way.

1 and 2 are the coil leads, three is ground, 4 is the clicker. its a split phase motor (90deg) with a cap between the two coils. power is applied to ground, and either coil, one coil runs left, other runs right. dry cap is most common failure, other than broke cable.

To safely test, hook a 40 or 60 watt bulb in series with the power cord. If it lights brightly, you need to try again, but at least you wont burn anything up.

- larry / dallas

[Bumpy]

When I had a rotor long time ago, I left a drawing of the wire hookup inside.

[Avery]

So, how do you now get power to the appliances on that side of the bedroom, or do they all use AA cells?

[Norminn]

clipped

Plug the strip into the outlet that is about 2' away from the mess. But then hubby moved the wifi thingy to the kitchen counter :o) Wonder how it handles chocolate cake batter?

[aemeijers]

Chuckle. When rotors were popular, back in the 50s and 60s and TV was still considered 'hi-tech', most of the rotor control heads I saw had a label pasted on the back or bottom for the installer to write in info like that. Back then dealers usually sold them installed.

Now that I finally have a house, I'd love to have a tower and rotator, like the family house did when I was a wee one. In cloudy weather in the middle of night, I always found trying to nail distant city stations to be quite fun. In college, I once got the Memphis stations in Bloomington, IN, for several hours,aiming antenna by hand. (pole was loose in the bracket on the student rental slum I was living in..)

aem sends...

[jmagerl]

I live about 60 miles out of chicago. on the analog stations, its not that critical to point the antenna, you can still get a watchable signal. But with digital stations, I have to be spot on. Probably a combination of lower station powers and interference from same channel stations across the lake. The difference between CH7D and channel 9D is 5 degrees and it makes a difference. BEfore this starts an arguement, I will also say that attenuation from tree leaves also enter into the picture. Just bringing it up to point out how marginal my signal conditions are. Get cable you say? it doesnt come out here. Satilitte? No clear shot due to trees (those damn leaves again)

I was really hoping the FCC was pushing all the digital stations to UHF so I could get rid of the 10 foot monster antenna on the roof. But alas CH2D (and I believe 7D) will still be on VHF

AS an update, I have determined that the green wire is terminal 4. There is a switch in the motor end that is open allowing the ID. Now I have 6 combinations to play with instead of 24

I would love to buy a rotor that has an >>> My TV antenna is (or I should say was) controlled by an Alliance U110

[Tom Horne]

jmagerl wrote:

That last is not quite true. There are several manufacturers of high quality antenna rotors in business. They do not advertise to the general public because their principal market is amateur radio operators and renegade high power CB users. In case there are others in your situation I'll list several amateur radio equipment vendors that carry antenna rotors and have an internet presence that includes online ordering. Let me assure everyone that I have no commercial or pecuniary interest in any of these firms. Brace yourself for sticker shock.

-- Tom Horne, W3TDH

[tnom]

Not true. Even an Ultra Fringe TV antenna with its extreme gain doesn't have that sharp of a front lobe. If 5 degrees makes a difference then you must not of been pointed directly at the station to begin with, or an adjacent signal was overwhelming the wanted signal and a 5 degree adjustment put the adjacent signal to a null point on the antenna.