At 06:16 PM 10/8/2005, Rob Atkinson, K5UJ wrote:
>this whole topic/conversation shows a pretty good reason to have
>professionals install subpanels.
>
>All the advice, recommendations involving SPG and so on sound great and i
>won't argue with them as they are correct, but whenever professionals start
>advising hams on grounding, protection, and so on, they often overlook one
>major thing--hams usually have stations in homes. Homes are almost never
>constructed to be telecommunications sites.
>costs: i once added up the cost of all the polyphasor stuff to do the job
>right and came up with around $2K. This is nothing for a guy with $20K in
>this hobby, but some guy with 2 grand in it will probably balk at that.
>why do hams not spend the money on gas discharge devices and all the other
>gear? there's a cost/fun price point somewhere in there where a lot of us
>make spending decisions that aren't always logical or rational--we'd rather
>blow our money on the fun stuff and take our chances, because that's what a
>hobby is about, having fun. I'm not saying that's always okay; i'm just
>saying that's how it is.
I agree.. you can make a realistic decision to just take the down-side
risk. Maybe you'll trust in your insurance? Maybe you'll just figure that
the odds are with you, and if you take the hit, then you'll be radio-less
until you come up with the cash.
I suppose one way to look at it is "what's the effect of being without
radio for some period of time".. If you're in the business of
communicating 24/7, then you want something that prevents down time. If
you're going to be adversely affected by being down for a couple weeks,
maybe just counting on buying new gear if and when is the approach.
There's also the risk assessment.. Where I'm located in southern
California, lightning just isn't a big risk. My gear is more likely to get
zapped by a power line transient than lightning. If I lived in Pueblo
Colorado, and had a 150 ft tower, I think my analysis would be different.
Ham radio is also like a lot of other hobbies, in that you might have
invested a goodly sum (in both dollars and hours), over the years, but
relatively few folks go out and drop $50K at a shot to build their station.
(If the lottery weren't such a bad investment.. wouldn't that be fun!) That
20K (or 2K) may have been spent a few hundred dollars at time, and, so, a
kilobuck for lightning protection is a pretty big shot.
However, it's worthwhile to think about the impact of things.. Maybe
there's "half measures" that would help. There's also "basic, gotta have
it" kinds of stuff (like tying antenna ground to electrical ground) Even
more important, there's probably things you really, really do not want to do.
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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