How's The Weather There ?
- Thread starter harro
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There's quite a bit of EMP in lightning. Worse, it inductively couples with anything metal. I've actually lost far more equipment this way over the years than voltage surges.
The only true surge-related damage I ever had to deal with was at a government transmitter site. Direct lightning strike to the tower. When the power came back on, we were offline and all sorts of alarms were going off. Upon pulling in the parking lot we found part of the actual antenna element laying in the parking lot, partially melted. Lighting had hit the antenna, went straight down through the Heliax hard coax cable and continued straight down, blowing a hole through the bend in the Heliax where it went into the transmitter doghouse. We could smell the doghouse before we opened the door. Every single surge protector had physically exploded, leaving poop stains all over the walls and racks. It didn't matter which brand, all of them there exploded. MUCH more damage inside the main facility which the doghouse was attached to.
Me being my typical a-hole self, wanted to see if the transmitters still worked. I did some quick wiring and hooked up the dummy load, and sure enough, all 4 of them still worked fine! We were floored. So, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at agency's vehicle maintenance shop fashioning a new antenna, running temporary coax up the tower, and cleaning up the mess. As part of the rebuild, I checked the complex's grounding system and found that it had multiple grounds all around the building. Each addition to the building had its own electrical system with ground, but was tied in with the existing parts of the building. Remember ground loops in audio? It's actually an electrical thing, and it seems many electricians don't understand it. We electrically isolated the transmitter/tower/antenna from the rest of the building and never had any surge issues ever since, and it's been ~25 years.
Long lengths of unshielded wire will definitely inductively couple with lightning. Down here, POE (Power over Ethernet) switches will blow individual ports often because of it. Regular network switches will as well, but the POE ones seem to do it at a much higher rate. I'm guessing the surge protection threshold has to be higher because of the 48vDC on the line. We still run ancient gear here, so the 48vDC to each port is switched by relays. I'm assuming newer network switches probably use solid state conductors for this and would be even more susceptible. HP seems the most resilient to this. Ciscos can handle higher temperatures than most, but blows ports regularly. I have some new TP-Link POE switches deployed, but haven't been through enough lightning storms to have an opinion on them yet.
The electrical system at my temporary place is...okay... It was redone in 2012 when they ripped out the all-aluminum wiring. Typical residential stuff. Probably slightly better than average. No damage to anything else in the house, just the cable modem and an SDR USB stick. Both still powered up, but were deaf. The SDR radio's connected to a small ~14" antenna sitting inside. I have plenty of Internet of Crap devices all over the place too.
SCEMan
Flashlight Enthusiast
After this afternoon's rain.
We've had rain yesterday and most of today, but the sun finally broke through. We should have weather in the 60's and 70's for the next 5 days.
SCEMan
Flashlight Enthusiast
80° clear & hot today
High 50s to low 60s. The sun shines on occasion. The grass is green, and the Japanese maples are starting to foliate. I love Spring.
84F, but low humidity and the smell of wildfires in the air.
No real rain expected for at least the next 10 days. 'tis the season. We had a wet winter, so I'm fine with this.
I do worry on the wildfires a bit though. These traditionally happened 'out in the boonies', but developers have been building more "Master Planned Communities" ::gag:: in the boonies, putting them closer to these threats.
No real rain expected for at least the next 10 days. 'tis the season. We had a wet winter, so I'm fine with this.
I do worry on the wildfires a bit though. These traditionally happened 'out in the boonies', but developers have been building more "Master Planned Communities" ::gag:: in the boonies, putting them closer to these threats.
pnwoutdoors
Enlightened
Starting to get into the mid-70s to low-80s, this past week or two. Definitely edging toward summer.
Nicely, spring still holds, so mostly the mornings are cool enough to take the edge off any 75+ degree heat that might come along during the afternoons. As others have said ... gotta love the spring.
Nicely, spring still holds, so mostly the mornings are cool enough to take the edge off any 75+ degree heat that might come along during the afternoons. As others have said ... gotta love the spring.
PhotonWrangler
Flashaholic
knucklegary
Flashlight Enthusiast
Members in the east..
...hang in there Byk!
@PhotonWrangler They were all solid-state transmitters. and yes, we were surprised. I've only worked on a few tube transmitters, all older than myself, but still pumping out the watts. Broadcast transmitters tend to be very reliable and rugged. Meant to run 24/7 and be serviced on-site. Also meant to be field-repairable.
Good luck.
I hope you are still posting in the morning!
I hope you have a flashlight or lantern you can use.
