[BC] Dissipating products

[Mario Heib]

I've used dissipators too and they seem to work as long as you have a good 
ground to feed them to.

I was at a day -long seminar on lightning protection last January, held by 
an "expert." He emphatically stated that static dissipators don't work. He 
also suggested "grounding" the center conductors of your coax and attaching 
lightning rods to your antenna elements. True story!!


Mario



At 09:37 AM 5/11/2005, you wrote:
>Message: 18
>Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 09:52:33 -0400
>From: "Pete Allen" <pallen at wrbs.com>
>Subject: RE: [BC] Lightning Prevention?????
>
>
>We've had our system for about 15 years with only one known direct hit 
>since then.  We used to get hit almost every storm and every hit would 
>bring some damage (usually toasted diodes, rectifier stacks and 
>transformers).  When I brought down the old antenna there were a dozen 
>burn holes in the aluminum due to lightning.  The final straw was a storm 
>that gave us 4 direct hits (2 of them while I was in the xmtr shack trying 
>to get things back on again).  It killed both main and aux xmtrs and left 
>us off air for 18 hours. Those hits also fused a 200 pair telco cable that 
>ran up our hill, blew sparks 10' out of a circuit breaker box, and welded 
>a drop ceiling grid in about 20 places.  Thankfully, no fire.
>
>Since installing the array, lightning will still hit a 90' light pole on 
>I-95 about 400 feet away (no damage to us) and occasionally pings a 
>electric pole at the bottom of the hill (power line issues).  The direct 
>hit I mentioned was from a freak fast moving storm that hit our area year 
>and a half ago.  EMF washed over the station, discolored every CRT on in 
>the building and even caused some fiber optic gear to fail, though the 
>xmtr and other gear stayed up.  I do believe that damage would have been 
>much worse without the system.
>
>I've even been outside when a storm was approaching. Just before lightning 
>would strike 5-6 miles away, I would hear a sound similar to a bug zapper 
>from the top of the tower (it let me know it was time to go inside again ? )
>
>
>Peter J. Allen
>Chief Engineer
>WRBS 95.1 FM
>410.247.4100
>410.247.4533 (fax)
>pallen at wrbs.com
>www.wrbs.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mario Hieb, P.E.
Consulting Engineer

36 H St. #2
Salt Lake City, UT 84103

e-mail: mario at xmission.com