Wingard Batwing antenna rotation

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Likely not the original but certainly a possible modification. In any case, you can grind off that stop and do as you please but eventually you will forget which way you turned your antenna and which way you need to turn it to stow properly and you will tear the coax to pieces. It's easy to fix if you do but I am guessing you won't post here telling of your misfortune later on.

Bill is right this time Tom. What he states would be way to easy to do. :B

I guess I'm not making my point. There will be a stop. I am going to cut off the existing stop and fashion something that will allow the antenna to rotate a full 360° and no further.

Antenna rotors use a sliding stop that lets the turn 360, in some cases 370 degrees.. I would like to see something like this for the batwing. I have yet to work out all the details though.

On mine the stop is "hidden" under the top plate. But I'm thinking of a 3 plate sandwitch.

The middle (Added) plate would basically have a slot that fit over the existing stop and it could turn say 45 degrees

The existing stop would be ground down so it did NOT extend above the middle plate and the middle plate would then have a stop on it that engaged the existing top plate as the bottom plate currently does.

That is the concept anyway.. if someone wants to build and sell it.. PM me and we can work it out.. I am reasonable on this kind of thing.

I like your middle plate idea, but my mount is the standard Winegard Sensar manual rotation model so the base does not have a cover.

I will be finished with my version today if the Minnesota heat wave doesn't get the best of me. I'll post a photo when I'm finished.

I just had another thought that might work for you. If your base is similar, rather than an inner plate, fashion an outer ring that would fit over the circular part of the base.

Thanks for the input.

There are at least two parts to the base.

The part that is fixed to the roof
The part that is fixed to the antenna and turns

The "Middle plate" I describe would go between them.

John,
I have not had my base apart so I don't know what would be involved in adding a middle plate. I have finished my project and I do know that mine has no inner stop. After cutting off the external stop, mine is free to rotate a complete 360° or more . Here's some photos of my solution:





The new stop mechanism is offset by 45° because it was the easiest place to mount it. I now have slightly more than 360° of rotation. Keep in mind that if the antenna cable is routed through where the stop is you would have to relocate the cable.

Cool job! I like it! As you have noted, there is no interior stop.

That looks like a good solution.. I may use that on mine as it would be simpler than what I described above. Amazing what happens when a forum gets together.

I would really be surprised if the broad antenna beam width of this simple dipole antenna would care about 35 degrees. Maybe on a high gain antenna with many director elements.

Dick

If you simply notch out the bottom of one side of the rotating housing, you would reduce the dead spot to not much.