I took a direct hit. It disintegrated my 2m/70cm vertical. It was 20 foot long. Now it is in 5 pieces in various length and the neighbor's lawn has many piece of the radome. The tower is grounded with three grounding rods that are connected to the service entry point on the garage. That saved 6 different radio from any damage. It took out a power supply that wasn't even connected to the antenna that took the hit. I have polyphaser lighting protection on all antennas. It has been up for 20 years and this is the first major damage.
-----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Glenn Little WB4UIV Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2015 10:10 PM To: Jim Bennett; 'Amsat' Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Preamps and Circular Polarization Switch.
Number one on the list is a good tower ground bonded to the single point service entrance ground at the house. MIL-HDBK-419 addresses this very well. When this is followed, you will have very minimum problems, unless, you take a direct strike. This can be minimized with static dissipators. When was the last time you saw a FAA communications tower that took a hit with any damaged equipment??
73 Glenn WB4UIV
At 08:27 PM 6/28/2015, Jim Bennett wrote:
Hey guys.
I just took a lighting strike the other day. Wipe out the big stick in the air. Also took out one preamp and possible a circular polarization switch on the sat antennas alone with both PCs that I had, a power supply, plus my network. The pair of KLM appear ok. So I am going to redo my tower
layout.
New coax(probably hard line), new preamps, new cp switch and new control cable to the preamps and CP switches. Rotor cables appear good, but will check to make sure.
I put this system together about 20 years ago. So I am starting out fresh trying to find the stuff. Is Lanwear amps still available? If not, what
is
the next best. Are there any shelf available CP switches. The ones I have were on the antennas when purchased. And they appear home built.
Any suggestions are appreciate.
Jim
Ke4kol
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glenn Little ARRL Technical Specialist QCWA LM 28417 Amateur Callsign: WB4UIV wb4uiv@arrl.net AMSAT LM 2178 QTH: Goose Creek, SC USA (EM92xx) SBE ARRL TAPR "It is not the class of license that the Amateur holds but the class of the Amateur that holds the license" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb