Topband: Hardening the 8 Circle Receiving Array

[Tim Duffy]

Hello Mark:

Installing diodes can cause severe problems with nearby broadcast stations.

During the summer months and lightning months I remove my preamps from the antenna elements to protect them. 
I am now just getting them installed tomorrow morning to prepare for the Fall Stew contest on Saturday.

Be careful making modifications that may hurt your array performance

73
Tim K3LR

-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Mark Robinson
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2019 8:54 PM
To: topband at contesting.com
Subject: Topband: Hardening the 8 Circle Receiving Array

I  have the DX Engineering 8 circle receiving array sized for 80/160m . 
It has been a fantastic performer but I have suffered damage to the 
active antenna amplifiers on two separate occasions due to nearby 
lightning strikes.

I am looking at a way to protect these amplifiers.  I was wondering if I 
can add a pair or  dual series pair (4 diodes in total) of back to back 
diodes - say 1N3600,  across the input to ground terminals on each 
amplifier.  Will this affect the performance of the array in any way ?

73 Mark N1UK


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