[TowerTalk] Castastrophic Consequences of Connector Failure?

[Pat Barthelow]

Folks,

When deciding on the reliability factor in your antenna construction, especially when running high power, or with modern solid state finals, I wonder what the probability of expensive damage is if an antenna connector, or adapter has a "hard" failure, i.e. an open or short circuit/flashover, etc.   I have experienced  few TX failures through the years, due to SWR faults caused by various antenna system faults.  With a high power tube amp, I have heard of fatal damage inflicted to tubes, or to bandswitches, or output network components.   On the other hand, I guess we can be lucky, and sometimes survive an antenna fault without damage to QRO active or passive path.   If the probability is high of expensive damage caused by antenna faults, perhaps it is worthwhile to achieve higher reliability by using higher quality and care with  connector components.

Also,  I often wondered that it might be a good widget to have a "trip relay" in an inline meter accessory to quickly, but not instantaneously remove  TX power under fault SWR occurances.  I know Bird, has such in the commercial market.   Is damage inflicted to the TX RF chain components by an antenna fault,  usually quicker than a relay could remove/reduce RF power?

All the best,
Pat Barthelow    (916) 315-9271
aa6eg at hotmail.com