42-400 antenna rotator - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: 42-400 antenna rotator (/showthread.php?tid=20412)

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42-400 antenna rotator - Electrothaumaturgist - 09-17-2019

Being in close proximity to my sisters' 42-400 these past few months has allowed me to facilitate some updates upon the unit, as it were. After cleaning the pushbutton contacts, repairing an internally broken cloth covered wire that was causing intermittent audio woes going to the output transformer that looked fine and was found by poking around underchassis with a plastic prod, and replacing squealing, noisy output tubes (THANKS Mr. Dobush!!!) and making major speaker cone repairs, and painstakingly cleaning every pin and socket, led the device to play powerfully once again, as it had when I brought it from the dead 6 or so years ago. This thing has massive bass. So now that it's running right, brought me to a frustrating dilemma about making any mods to the cabinet, even in the backside of it. So, while switching between presets, the antenna position needs to be changed, which means being extremely careful to pull the radio from the wall without knocking over the fragile items placed upon an antique doily on top of the radio just to rotate the antenna. Got sick of that and fabricated a pulley system with a thumbwheel to rotate the aerial assembly. The concept was of the simplest type, but was a real pain to get all the tensions just right. Ripped apart an old printer and mixed and matched the gears till I got the right combo, then made a belt from a long strip of velcro with rubber foam glued to the face for grip. Used printer rod and pressure roller on the bottom gear. Sacrificed a chrome Acoustat knob from my brothers' (Ted) collection with set screws for the thumbwheel, drilled it and locked it onto the shaft. Drilled the dowel on top of the antenna and attached a gear there. Changed to a lighter spring under it and had to change the screw out. Then balanced the tension of the screws and rotating height and the belt. I've never seen any other radio with an adjustable antenna rotator, so I thought I'd share. Pics to follow when I get off mobile. XD

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RE: 42-400 antenna rotator - Electrothaumaturgist - 09-17-2019

So the chrome thumbwheel that I installed looks cool, but is a bit slick even with the shallow serrated edges. What I would like to do is find a real thumbwheel that matches the existing ones on the set. That would top it off. I will post in the want ads for one.

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RE: 42-400 antenna rotator - Electrothaumaturgist - 09-18-2019

I just uploaded a video to Utube (first one ever there!) entitled "42-400 antenna rotor" if anyone is interested. It's pretty trick, if you ask me! XD. I can't seem to do much of anything with this mobile phone, and providing a link to it seems an impossible task till I blow the dust off the laptop, I guess. As I write this, parts of words are cut out and is really wonky. You can also google it and it comes up.
I actually entitled it "42-400 antenna rotator", but when video posted, the title was changed. Doesn't matter, comes up either way.

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