[TowerTalk] Lightning and Coax
Phil Coley
dxingman at bellsouth.net
Fri Sep 17 19:12:54 EDT 2021
I haven’t had any lightning hits (that I know of) in my 60 + years as an active ham until Hurricane Ida came through earlier this month. I’ve had large towers and beams, verticals, etc over the years so I’m sure I’ve had some hits but noticed no damage.
The hit was about 100 feet from my house and damaged satellite, cable and internet services as well as electronic devices (TVs, routers, modems, etc).
My now modest station (transceiver and 130 ft. Inverted L antenna took a hit. Some visible damage to the antenna, transceiver and switching power supply. Other accessories were ok. Most of my other sensitive electronic devices were toasted.
Coax feed to protected setup looks OK but arrestor and grounding coax switch were zapped. Coax was just replaced (LMR-400) a few months ago. Simple testing seem to show it’s not shorted and does receive signals.
When rebuilding my setup, should I replace the coax as well? Would hate to get everything set back up and learn the coax that is buried in ground has issues.
Thanks for your input.
73, Phil K4MPE
Sent from my iPhone SE
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