These are all good answers but there is more.
Definitely points to be made on other geographic areas and soil content.
I do not believe for one second there isnt a tower that will NOT get struck.
Thing about the energy that strikes is to channel that energy or
disperse it somewhere it
dissolves.
I have 3 sites that are all on mt tops and all are on the last run for
power. Not good combos for any tower.
As far as just giving up on a site because you lost a few $$ in gear and
saying there is nothing that can be done is the point to be made here
how far would you go before condemning a Site unfit for service?
I have been put into position for our company to "FIX IT" per say. So,
for all practical purposes there is more than one site I have definitely
wanted
to throw in the towel. For some reason for me there is a fix or an
answer for the fix.
I always look to R56 for the standard of grounding and protection and as
tech changes so does the protection standards.
Now that I have taken that stance a majority of my issues for
sustainability and reliability have practically diminished. I also
follow the lead of other
telcos that we share the same tower and what they are doing for
grounding and prevention.
This only one phase of how for I would go. Field testing and using the
right tools and starting with the basics is just a small part of finding
the problem.
The very first and most important to me is looking at power coming into
the facility the source. The second is the tower itself. Metal fatigue
and rust can cause
some weirdo issues on a tower.
Contractors need to understand the importance of any project that
requires grounds and the standards that we want on those methods of
grounding.
I have seen poor irreversible crimp jobs on ground rings and cable tray
grounds.
On 8/16/2017 12:44 PM, Chuck McCown wrote:
Nice. Sounds like a PANI type of system.
*From:* Paul Stewart
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2017 10:10 AM
*To:* Animal Farm
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] how far and much
Great questions … and something I should have elaborated on for sure…
Yes - each portion of the tower had it’s own isolated grounds besides
the tower itself. These went into a grounding grid built around the
base of the site. The guy wires were of course all grounded out into
their own grids as well.
The top of the tower was grounded and the bottom portion of the tower
was grounded - both on separate isolated runs.
The point of entry including the raceway to hold the cables were
grounded - the cabling (Heliax, LMR, and ethernet) all had grounded
surge suppression in that section on the building exterior. On the
building interior, there was an exact replication of the outside
(everything surge surpressed and grounded away from building itself).
The building itself was elevated on concrete posts and two grounds for
the building itself were tied to the grid as I recall. The concrete
was made from a special mixture - wish I could remember the name of
this stuff but it’s supposed to provide for additional protection
going out to the grounding grids around the building…
Each raceway, and portion of the lineups were tied into an interior
grounding block which was then ran outside.
This is all by memory …. It was literally at $2mil site with equipment
and tower. There was a company brought in for the engineering aspects
and another company specific to the grounding portions.
Thanks,
Paul
On Aug 16, 2017, at 10:21 AM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote:
So, was the tower mounted equipment isolated with its own ground wire?
Curious about the improper isolation at the entry point.
What was the proper way and what did the improper installation do to
violate that?
*From:* Paul Stewart
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2017 8:05 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] how far and much
I’ve only ever encountered one tower (at former job) that was pretty
“bulletproof” …
The tower was 350ft and located on the highest elevation for about
100 square KM area … so it was a prime target for lightning strikes.
I don’t know exactly how many times a year it took a hit but would
guess at 8-10 times per year it would have a direct hit. There was
only one time where any damage occurred and it was because of some
shoddy updates by a 3rd party contractor whom didn’t do proper
isolation at an entry point (effectively bypassing some layers of
protection).
That site had a full cellular deployment along with several PTP600’s
for backhaul and PMP320/PMP100 - with the cellular being at the very
top and the Cambium gear further down.
Paul
On Aug 16, 2017, at 9:11 AM, Eric Muehleisen <[email protected]> wrote:
No such thing as a bullet proof tower. At least not in my area. All
the over-engineering in the world can't stop a direct strike. Some
days you get lucky, some days not. It's a roll of the dice.
On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 7:29 AM, David Milholen
<[email protected]> wrote:
I am asking for pure simple curiosity.
How far would you go and how much would you spend to have a bullet
proof Tower site?
I am looking for answers in small class tower to super duty types
or leases.
What I mean by bullet proof is How many time a year are you
replacing gear due to weather complications
or how many times are you going to back to the site to reboot
something . How many times are you remoting into a
site to adj power or channels to avoid interference. How many times
are you having to make adjustments to ethernet ports.
All these tasks add up in time.
Our team this year has only had to visit 2 sites unexpectedly due
to weather and take the next step in making it bullet proof.
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