Thor Forums

[sage]

One tip that I picked up many years ago is to attach a clothes pin on the antenna crank. When we're in a campground and raise the antenna, the clothes pin comes off and is clipped on the gear shift. That way when you go to leave, if that clothes pin is still on the gear shift, you know your antenna hasn't been cranked down.

I did this yesterday morning when leaving a campground but 20 miles down the road another RV passed us and signaled that the antenna was still up. I pulled over as soon as could, climbed out for a look and sure enough, the antenna was still elevated, even though I had cranked it down.

I went back to the crank and discovered that the rotator plate wasn't exactly on the orientation mark for lowering the antenna - that little triangular bump. I cranked the antenna back up, moved the rotor the fraction of an inch needed to align it and then cranked back down. This time I could feel the antenna settle on the roof.

Lessons learned: (1) that rotator has to be accurately aligned for the antenna to come down, (2) if it's not you can still turn that crank and it will fool you into thinking the antenna is down when it isn't, (3) visually verify the antenna is down.