[TowerTalk] Sparky Pays a Visit

[Eugene Jensen]

Funny thing when Mr. Sparky come to visit as I still have no towers here at
new QTH due to our friend MR IBC 2000. But let leave that for another thread
that I have installed a whole Leviton Structured Media Advanced Telephone &
Media Panel with all new wiring. After a local lightning storm my Wife
called me at work and complains about noise on the phone lines. After
checking the whole system I found that on the Telephone/Network panel that
line were shorted and when I removed it the surge had came in on the POTS
lines and burned (it look like spider webs on the board) had fried it well
done. So much for Telephone Company Network device on the house Interface
shunting any thing to ground. I was planning as part of the single point
ground a PolyPhaser IS-6PTL when the towers are installed. Looks like it
going to get done sooner than later. This was planed to protect a new
Panasonic Telephone System I'm installing for business reasons. I'm thinking
if the PolyPhaser device had been installed I would have been ok. Keep a
good insurance policy just in case. I going to due a lot more thinking about
how best to single point ground the towers with the Power lines on the other
side of the house.  73 Gene K2QWD    

-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dennis O'Connor
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 8:39 AM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Sparky Pays a Visit

Having been through two lightning strikes ten years apart at two different
QTH, I sympathize with you.. My experience is that the only rigs that
survive are those that are on the bench with their cables wrapped around
them and not connected to anything, and especially not grounded  (right
after field day and the IC706 laying on the bench in front of the Omni 6, is
just fine, thank you)  Everything else in the shop was fried, as was the
well pump, some 180 feet down, and even the wall clock exploded it's motor
windings and flew off the wall...  Now, none of the radios in the shack had
antennas hooked to them and the 110 / 220 power breaker to the radio bench
was off/open (it fried also)... But the current surge rode in on the rotor
wires to the rotor boxes, arced across the cases of the rotor box(s) to the
cases of the radios and amps blowing chunks of paint off the cases, none of
which had antennas hooked up but were always GROUNDED for safety, and
everything fried of course.
 ..  
My employees who were in the shop at the time said they were blinded by the
glare of the arcing inside the building (no fires)... Consumers Power
Company came out an inspected the damage for the insurance claim and said I
was properly grounded and that a hit of that magnitude, estimated in excess
of 60,000 amps by them, is uncontrollable...

denn
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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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