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[TowerTalk] AC voltage on Grounds

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] AC voltage on Grounds
From: 74237.2073@compuserve.com (James W. Fisher, Jr.)
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 08:50:55 -0400
I also had too-high voltage here, but only in the middle of the
night--caused the protective circuits on my 87A to shut it down (which it
does at 16V over the normal setting, which in my case is 240V).  It took me
a while to get my power co's attention to this matter (they infuriated me
in the middle of the night by saying too MUCH voltage was not an emergency)
and it was also not really productive for them to come around during
business hours to do voltage measurements.  Eventually they found that
their voltage adjustment mechanism around 20 miles away was "ratcheting" to
handle the daytime load and sometimes failing to cut back promptly (I'm no
expert in this--hope I have characterized it correctly).  They fixed that
and I haven't had any more problems.

They put in a recording device with a graph and monitored it for a while. 
But it sounds like your problem may be detectable during the day.

As to whether your voltage in strange places is actually related to the
over-voltage problem, I wonder if you get it with all your equipment
disconnected.  Also wonder whether you have an effective
single-point-of-entry ground system and have grounded each tower leg per
PolyPhaser book, etc.

73 es GL,

Jim, VE1JF

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