In my cleaning up/sorting of my misc. electronic kit, I stumbled upon an old rotor. I believe it is a channel master rotor (or a Radio Shack copy). Of course I had to see if it worked - and it did! Now I have two CM rotors. I am thinking of putting both on my tower project.

In my tower design I realized I would need at least 100ft of rotor wire. I currently only have a 75' stretch. I had given up my last 200ft to my brother-in-law and didn't feel like buying another roll of 500ft. You can buy cheap stuff in 75ft. However I did have lots of CAT5 that I didn't need (I have 1000' of CAT6 I need to use first). Cheap rotor wire is typically 22 gauge. Good rotor wire is 20 gauge, CAT 5 is 24 gauge. Rotor wire is typically 3 wire (Channel Master) or 4 wire. Easy solution is to pair up wires in a CAT5 for a 4 wire cable. Pictures show a typical wire hookup, the video below shows the rotor opening at normal speeds. The rotor bolts are currently in a container of vinegar "derusting". Don't forget to cut off the unused pair to avoid shorting.

I originally wanted to install my antenna tower on the two floor side of my side split house. The plan was that I probably could have climbed the final section and a half easily for maintenance. I have since changed up the plan and will design a hinge base for the tower. That only leaves me with a small section on the other side of the house where a tower could be lowered without hitting  a tree. My other worry about the North side of my house was that all the stations are to the south and I would be receiving signals over 40+ feet of metal roof. They say that if you 10 feet above the the roof diffraction would not be an issue but I am not convinced.

A man can never have too many projects.