[TowerTalk] Lightning protection and control wires

[Dick Green WC1M]

I use these:

http://hr-micro.com/

In addition to having two MOVs and a fuse per line, the board can be
purchased without the enclosure so you can mount on the ground panel inside
a weatherproof box.

One thing to be very careful about: some modern rotator controllers, SteppIR
controllers, etc., have delicate semiconductors directly connected to the
signal wires. You need to select MOVs that have a low enough trigger point
to protect the semiconductors without going below the average voltage put on
the signal wires by the semiconductors. This can be something of a
challenge.

Though I use surge suppressors at both ends (tower and shack), I also
disconnect whenever the station is not in use during lightning season. If a
surge gets past the MOVs, it can find its way into all sorts of equipment in
your shack via the controller.

73, Dick WC1M



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Loen [mailto:lwloen at gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 6:41 PM
> To: john at kk9a.com
> Cc: TOWERTALK at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning protection and control wires
> 
> Thanks to all.
> 
> This is the sort of stuff I'm looking for; happy if you know of
> something else, too.
> 
> I am looking to operate remotely at some point, so this sort of MOV
> surge protection looks like part of the cost of that dream.
> 
> 
> Larry Wo0Z
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 11:31 AM, <john at kk9a.com> wrote:
> 
> > Array Solutions makes a nice protector.
> > http://www.arraysolutions.com/Products/surge_arrestor.htm
> >
> >
> > To:     TOWERTALK at contesting.com
> > Subject:[TowerTalk] Lightning protection and control wires
> > From:    Larry Loen <lwloen at gmail.com>
> > Date:    Wed, 3 Oct 2012 09:34:59 -0700
> >
> >
> > I really don't understand, quite, how to protect myself from lightning
> > coming down the various wires.  I'm sure this will be crushingly
> > obvious to someone, but I'm clearly missing something.
> >
> > I'll have wires to coax switches and, of course, the rotor.
> >
> > I plan on doing all the grounding of the coax and even putting in one
> > of those special gadgets that "blow out" a ball of
> > whatever-that-substance-is for the non-ground signal on the coax.  I
> > plan on putting in the grounding systems talked about in "Up the
> > Tower" and generally around here.
> >
> > But, despite having "Up the Tower" I don't get how to really secure
> > control lines (e.g. to the rotor) as far as lightning goes.
> >
> > Is there some gadget that does the job?
> >
> > Have I overlooked something?
> >
> > Do I just rely on the regular low impedance grounding system to take
> > up most of the energy and hope not much flows on these wires?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Larry Wo0Z
> >
> >
> >