A project that had been on my shack’s list of things to do for quite some time was to replace the burned out bulbs in my rotor controllers and apply a couple upgrades while I had them open. Currently the station here has two rotors and controllers. The first is a Yaesu G-1000DXA that I bought used from Jack, W1WEF , and is installed on the tower under the Hexbeam. The other is a G-450A , which was originally purchased for the Hexbeam , but now turns the 40-2CD that goes up on an AB-577 tower during contes
I had also been on the lookout for a low-cost computer interface that would allow me to adjust the controller’s azimuthal angle directly from the logging software instead of reaching over to push and hold down the switches on the face of the box. I had previously looked into the interface sold by Idiom Press (now Hamsupply.com ), but they had received some negative feedback regarding their customer service before they sold their company and they only had an interface for the G-1000DXA. Lucky for me, Scott,
If you’ve never opened up a Yaesu controller to replace a bulb, the process can be somewhat of a pain, but I’ve opened up both of these boxes to do repairs in the past, and after the first time, it becomes much easier. I had also previously purchased the rotor map insert for the G1000DXA, but had installed it in the G-450A as a test for James, N4EGA @ CQMaps to help him determine if he needed to create a different version for each controller model. It did fit, but needed some adjustments, so I left it in