As of late, the rotor for LA1K’s antenna array has completely stopped working. We’ve been experiencing some prior issues during cold-periods, and given the swinging weather we’ve faced some issues whilst fault finding, (somewhat) luckily the rotor now became completely seized. This naturally causes some loss in our capacity to run radios from our shack… As usual, this sort of thing naturally happened right before this weekend’s RTTY-contest CQ WPX 2025.

To try and make the best of the situation, we’ve started an effort to troubleshoot and, if possible, repair the rotor. We started our efforts in trying to find what exactly has gone awry. After some troubleshooting it was concluded that the power cables and motor driver likely were in order, based on measuring voltage at the motor connector, we decided to dismount the rotor-motor from our mast to inspect it further. 

The weather definitely agreed with this decision and we had a nice spot of sunshine in the early winter of Trondheim while retrieving the motor. When inspecting the motor, we noticed that it had some signs of being exposed to the elements, for likely more than just one year. Without being able to pinpoint the issue on the external inspection, we dug deeper and took in inside to inspect the internals.

LB6GH working hard, whilst Bendik and LB2DK (behind camera) is hardly working.
Rusted brush-spring
Rust spots on the rotor
Rusty NDE-bearing

Given the previous measurements and external inspection, it would seem likely that some sort of corrosion would be the fault. Removing the outer plastic gave us a clear view of degradation, and the fault. Inside a slightly rusted brush-spring, some rust spots on the rotor, and lastly a corroded cup that acts as a NDE-bearing were to be found. We gave it some TLC, and it was back to business, just in time for the competition!

LB6GH reattaching the mended DC motor under the starry sky. Image: LB5DH
LB2RH and Lea hunting for QSO’s! Image: LB5DH

At 06:00 the day after LA1K went on the air! Although we didn’t beat our unofficial record on the most amount of distinct operators (outside of Field Day), we managed to get 15 of our unlicenced members at least one QSO! Looking at the points we can see that we managed to rack up a whopping 1986 claimed QSO’s, making this one of the best contests that we’ve had!

Like previous contests we sat up a 15m antenna, this time however we used the 15m flowerpot antenna, which can be read more about here! Also like usual; we had a contest-cake, thanks to Albert’s sister!