Doug, I hope your Ham club did not accept any responsibility for the operation or maintenance of the tower lighting, because some of the most severe fines and penalties are for failure to have the tower properly lighted. Fines of $10,000 per day have been levied for lighting violations, so you should avoid even the appearance of being responsible in any way for such equipment.
That said, it is not normal for strobes to fail in such a short time. Although I have no experience with Flash Technology equipment, I do know that most strobes in continuous operation should last at least two years- if they are operated within their specifications. If too much power is dissipated in the flash tube, its lifetime will be profoundly curtailed. It is possible that the technician who installed the strobe equipment simply left the power setting at maximum. Contact the manufacturer for specific technical information. Information and links about the lighting requirements for towers can be found here: <http://www.fcc.gov/mb/policy/dtv/lighting.html> and the FAA Advisory Circular can be found here: <http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/736f762742f45ab9862569ee0077ef5e/$FILE/AC70-7460-1K.pdf> When a flashing beacon atop a tower fails, the FAA Flight Service Station must be notified immediately so that a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) may be published to warn pilots of the danger. The penalties for failure to report a tower light outage are severe, and the liabilities for an aircraft accident resulting from collision with an unlit tower can run into many millions of dollars. Most tower owners invest in automated monitoring systems that will send a pager and telephone notification to the responsible people and to a central alarm office when an outage occurs. If your tower does not have a monitoring system, someone should visually check at least once each day to ensure that the lights are working. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY Doug Zastrow wrote: > Hello All, In return for free tower space our ham club baby sits a 360 > ft. guyed tower. Looking for anyone with real-world experience with > Flash Technology FH-324 red/white flash tower obstruction lighting. In > the 18 month period following new installation all three red 'beacons' > have failed. Tower mounted flash heads have a coupling transformer, > trigger transformer, RC network and flash tube. In red beacon failures > how often has trouble been in components *other* than the flash > tube? Is it true red flash tube shelf-life is six months or less? What > has the real-world life expectancy (in operation) of the red flash > tubes been? FYI, trouble was isolated to the flash heads by swapping > cables at the Power Controllers. Trouble stayed with the flash head. > Flash heads failed in succession over a period of 4-5 > months. Moderator: If this is too far OT don't hesitate to > kill. TIA... Doug Zastrow > > > > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS > > + Visit your group "Repeater-Builder" on the web. > > + To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > + Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of > Service. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
