[TowerTalk] Tower Lighting

[Roger Parsons]

I have access to a 325' tower for my remote station, and like to assist the tower owner where possible.

The tower lighting is controlled by a light sensistive switch working a relay which actually controls the lights. The relay controller appears to be home made and did have a large open frame relay in it - until the contacts completely disappeared! (The actual load from the lights is about 1200w on each of two phases.) I replaced the relay with a 30A contactor which I thought was overkill and it was fine for several years, but that is now getting unreliable. Clearly there is a pretty heavy switch on surge with incandescent lamps, but this must be true at all tower sites.

What do the professionals do? (I suspect the answer to that is spend several thousand dollars with Cutler-Hammer.....)

73 Roger
VE3ZI