Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Yes, we use DC ground antennas. I am going to move the ground wire from the XR2 to the case instead of the Board standoff screw. Someone said the RB411 has a weird ground arrangement and that may be part of it. I have not been grounding the case either. Sounds like I need to act like the satellite guys. They ground everything no matter how far up the building the wire has to run. Tom Sharples wrote: We used to see occasional loss of RX sensitivity from lightning on our older installs, but not since we started using DC grounded antennas. Are you using those (e.g. ARCs), or separate lightning protection on the XR2's? WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Seems to me it is ethernet cable picking up EMP. I seem to lose a lot of Netgear routers lately. Seems to go right through the POE and gets the WAN port. Also Transmit side of XR2's. Always see receive side degrading after mid path lightning strikes even a mile away. Trango ethernet survives. Once we got a direct Tower strike and everything on the tower was shot, the only survivor was the top antenna a Trango 900 EXT. that was the only one with non-shielded cat 5. Go figure. Scottie Arnett wrote: Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
We ground our Heliax at 75 ft increments down the tower but have never done it with shielded CAT5. I've seen a few notes about soldering the drain to the connector and it may work well but I recall being told by an engineer, from I think Erico, as we discussed attachment of our copper wire back to clamps for our tower not to solder them to the ground lugs because the temperature would rise during a lightning strike causing the solder to overheat effectively loosing ground potential of the tower. Thoughts? Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: I have attached a photo of what we do with our Cat5 cabling. Soldered end and then heat shrink wrapped with the glue inside. I'm starting to wonder if we should ground out every 50 ft on the Cat5 side. It's what we watched Nextel do to their RF cabling. One other thing I found when looking at their cabling, they are draining the ground to multiple places along the path down the tower. The cable is cut open, grounded out, then it is cold-shrinked back together. I found the shrink wrap used on Tessco's site, granted it is not made for Ethernet. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Gary Garrett Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 2:34 PM To: sarn...@info-ed.com; WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes Seems to me it is ethernet cable picking up EMP. I seem to lose a lot of Netgear routers lately. Seems to go right through the POE and gets the WAN port. Also Transmit side of XR2's. Always see receive side degrading after mid path lightning strikes even a mile away. Trango ethernet survives. Once we got a direct Tower strike and everything on the tower was shot, the only survivor was the top antenna a Trango 900 EXT. that was the only one with non-shielded cat 5. Go figure. Scottie Arnett wrote: Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
* Gary Garrett wrote, On 8/7/2009 2:34 PM: Seems to me it is ethernet cable picking up EMP. I seem to lose a lot of Netgear routers lately. Seems to go right through the POE and gets the WAN port. Also Transmit side of XR2's. Always see receive side degrading after mid path lightning strikes even a mile away. Trango ethernet survives. Once we got a direct Tower strike and everything on the tower was shot, the only survivor was the top antenna a Trango 900 EXT. that was the only one with non-shielded cat 5. Go figure. One of the things I remember is like some have said not have a ground loop. Also, usually one side of the cable should be grounded. WHen I lived in South Florida and hada 35' tower for my ham and tv stuff, I put in a Joslyn (sp) surge suppressor in the electrical panel across the AC feed coming in and put in some GFI breakers for that stuff. I also had some GFI outlets running the equipment. Luckily never had a problem as South Florida has lots of lightning. Leon No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.406 / Virus Database: 270.13.46/2288 - Release Date: 08/07/09 13:13:00 WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Every RF guy I know ways the lightning dissipators work. These are nice: http://www.lawrencebehr.net/international/lightmas.php -RickG On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Marlon K. Schafero...@odessaoffice.com wrote: Nextel spends tens or hundreds of thousands per device. Our stuff is cheaper than cheap. Get off of the TOP of the tower. Polyphaser has a great lightning white paper. If you can be 10' below the top you'll be much more protected. Also, I've had good luck lately with ferrite beads. And ground everything. Ground it again. and again and again. You might also want to consider adding a static dissipater on the top of the tower to help keep the lightning away in the first place. http://www.affordable-solar.com/gs-1.brush.lightning.dissipator.htm http://www.eriinc.com/products/btss/CA21831A_10.pdf I think Hutton carries something too. marlon - Original Message - From: Chuck Hogg ch...@shelbybb.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 7:31 AM Subject: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe:
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
An isolation transformer without any protection probably wouldn't offer much as the higher frequency components of the transient would probably pass the transformer through capacitive coupling between the windings. I'm sure the Transtector has some type of protection/ clamping. That price range ($1k) is where the stuff that actually works starts. The series style AC protectors are best as they have some inductance the incoming power has to flow through and the higher frequency components of the transient create a high enough voltage to trigger the protectors before the transient is seen by the equipment. The parallel style protectors subject your equipment to the same voltage required to trigger the protection. As per the Polyphaser white paper and other sources it is possible to pick a strike size you want to survive and engineer for that successfully (grounding system, single point entry for all I/O's and protectors on all I/O's, etc.) which becomes even more complicated when you have IDU/ODU systems since you're trying to keep all I/O's and grounds more or less at the same potential during the strike and give it somewhere to go (ground). Greg On Aug 6, 2009, at 10:39 AM, David Hulsebus wrote: I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
I did a lot of lightning protection for composite aircraft. After initial losses on my towers, here's our basic system: 1. All ethernet cables inside or out must be shielded. Ethernet is a high impedance signal that lightning can couple into easily. We also prefer gel filled cables for outdoor work. water proof non-filled cables aren't. Each end of these cable shields must be terminated to ground. 1.a Surge protection at entrance to NOC for all CAT5 / Coax. Polyphaser rocks for RF. Again, all of this must go to the ground ring with #2 copper. Between antennas at the top and any RF gear at top, polyphaser again. Keep it out of the radio. 2. Ground ring around tower and NOC. We are in clay, so we have about 100 8 ft ground rods interconnected with #2 sold tinned copper via cadweld. Stingers come off these rings for equipment in the NOC, and to each leg of the tower. 3. Up the tower, 2 #2 stranded conductors. One end tied to the ring at the bottom, the other to solid tinned copper ground plates at each boom elevation. Each boom grounded to the plate via cad weld. Ground rod at top of tower grounded to same plate. Lightning dissapaters grounded to same plate. 4. Tower legs, booms, and other bolted together structure is not a proper ground. 4.a Water towers (metal) are usually very well bonded. They make good ground interconnects since they are welded. 5. Large whole building surge protection at utility power entrance. This must tie to the same ring. 6. UPS everything or DC power everything. 7. Small prayer when storms come seems to help! That said, I've seen a direct strike hit with so much energy that it blew a 1 foot whole through the foundation! Marco WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet? Will running on battery or solar lessen your chances of equipment damage that much more that it is worth the cost? I am in the same boat as these guys and have one location hit 5 times in the last two years that caused major damage(talking SMOKED AP's), more than that if you just include power supplies and switches. I was thinking of grounding the crap out of this location, but it looks like David did that and it did not help much. Scottie -- Original Message -- From: David Hulsebus cont...@portative.net Reply-To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:09:58 -0400 I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives:
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Every time I've had lightning damage my UPS is uneffected. APC and no-name brands. On 8/6/09, Scottie Arnett sarn...@info-ed.com wrote: Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet? Will running on battery or solar lessen your chances of equipment damage that much more that it is worth the cost? I am in the same boat as these guys and have one location hit 5 times in the last two years that caused major damage(talking SMOKED AP's), more than that if you just include power supplies and switches. I was thinking of grounding the crap out of this location, but it looks like David did that and it did not help much. Scottie -- Original Message -- From: David Hulsebus cont...@portative.net Reply-To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:09:58 -0400 I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
We have four solar locations, two of which have operated for over five years without any lightning damage. At least one of them is in a location and with a mast that I'd consider to be a prime target. The one that really nailed us was a nearby building strike - it destroyed an antenna and the associated AP. Did not take out any of the associated ethernet stuff. We may have just gotten lucky, but we've since taken care to put in place professional-grade (the guy has done stuff at Los Alamos National Lab and we are---I work there---real heavy into lightning protection and high energy safety) protection. Given what I just said, no doubt two of those APs will get taken out in the next couple of weeks :)...lightning is nothing if not capricious and deadly. FWIW. Bob Scottie Arnett wrote: Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet? Will running on battery or solar lessen your chances of equipment damage that much more that it is worth the cost? I am in the same boat as these guys and have one location hit 5 times in the last two years that caused major damage(talking SMOKED AP's), more than that if you just include power supplies and switches. I was thinking of grounding the crap out of this location, but it looks like David did that and it did not help much. Scottie -- Original Message -- From: David Hulsebus cont...@portative.net Reply-To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:09:58 -0400 I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Sounds like your ground potential between tower ground and electrical ground might is not optimal. Make sure that the tower ground is also correctly and properly grounded to the electrical ground. Seems your electronic might be shunt between the two grounds so each time tower get a hit your equipment gets fried. / Eje -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Scottie Arnett Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 9:03 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet? Will running on battery or solar lessen your chances of equipment damage that much more that it is worth the cost? I am in the same boat as these guys and have one location hit 5 times in the last two years that caused major damage(talking SMOKED AP's), more than that if you just include power supplies and switches. I was thinking of grounding the crap out of this location, but it looks like David did that and it did not help much. Scottie -- Original Message -- From: David Hulsebus cont...@portative.net Reply-To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:09:58 -0400 I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Where are you located? 4.a Water towers (metal) are usually very well bonded. They make good ground interconnects since they are welded. This is an almost exact case of my problem location. It is on top of a 66' water tower that is on a very high elevation for our area. Not the highest spot, but close. I have found NO ground what-so-ever on this tank. I asked the water dept. about this tank and they said it was not grounded because they did not have any equipment on it. They also said it was setting on about 4 ft. of sand, soaked in oil to keep the bottom of the tank from rusting. They would not let us install an electrical entrance close, so we had to bury conduit with ethernet run through it about 100' from the base of the tank to the electrical pole where all our equipment is installed. On the first hit, we had Moto's SS surges installed bonded to the electrical ground. Did not help. After our first hit, we grounded all our metal conduit that the cat5 runs through from top of the tank to bottom with ground rods at the bottom of the tank. Did not help. We tried floating grounds, did not help. Our next step is to get excessive. We are going to ground the tank ourselves, connect the tank to the electrical ground to rule out ground loops, install Polyphaser surge on all equipment, and ground at top and bottom of the tank on all cat5. Do you guys think this will work? Scottie -- Original Message -- From: Marco Coelho coelh...@gmail.com Reply-To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 14:45:05 -0500 I did a lot of lightning protection for composite aircraft. After initial losses on my towers, here's our basic system: 1. All ethernet cables inside or out must be shielded. Ethernet is a high impedance signal that lightning can couple into easily. We also prefer gel filled cables for outdoor work. water proof non-filled cables aren't. Each end of these cable shields must be terminated to ground. 1.a Surge protection at entrance to NOC for all CAT5 / Coax. Polyphaser rocks for RF. Again, all of this must go to the ground ring with #2 copper. Between antennas at the top and any RF gear at top, polyphaser again. Keep it out of the radio. 2. Ground ring around tower and NOC. We are in clay, so we have about 100 8 ft ground rods interconnected with #2 sold tinned copper via cadweld. Stingers come off these rings for equipment in the NOC, and to each leg of the tower. 3. Up the tower, 2 #2 stranded conductors. One end tied to the ring at the bottom, the other to solid tinned copper ground plates at each boom elevation. Each boom grounded to the plate via cad weld. Ground rod at top of tower grounded to same plate. Lightning dissapaters grounded to same plate. 4. Tower legs, booms, and other bolted together structure is not a proper ground. 4.a Water towers (metal) are usually very well bonded. They make good ground interconnects since they are welded. 5. Large whole building surge protection at utility power entrance. This must tie to the same ring. 6. UPS everything or DC power everything. 7. Small prayer when storms come seems to help! That said, I've seen a direct strike hit with so much energy that it blew a 1 foot whole through the foundation! Marco WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] Wireless High Speed Broadband service from Info-Ed, Inc. as low as $30.00/mth. Check out www.info-ed.com/wireless.html for information. WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
We are in Midwest, not a high stick area, so take this for what it's worth. Electrical. ISObar 2 outlet sure plugged into outlet Tripplite DUAL CONVERSION battery plugged into ISObar. This converts from ac to dc, and back to ac. It cleans the power digital loggers reboot board for outlet control - not pertinent to lightening protection, but useful Ethernets All new towers and any retrofits, shielded cable with shielded ends on both sides. all Ethernets bundled into a PVC conduit. Yes you have to plan ahead for any expansion. Very Important - KEEP THE PVC OFF THE LEG. - attach the pvc to the face. #2 ground in building attached to halo Ethernets attached to this ground. - In my opinion if the Ethernet shield isn't attached to a ground, it is about worthless #2 running up tower attaching to all antennas, etc - if problems continue Scott Piehn - Original Message - From: Scottie Arnett sarn...@info-ed.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 9:02 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes Whats the majority think the equipment damage from lightning comes from...electric surge or coupling on the Ethernet? Will running on battery or solar lessen your chances of equipment damage that much more that it is worth the cost? I am in the same boat as these guys and have one location hit 5 times in the last two years that caused major damage(talking SMOKED AP's), more than that if you just include power supplies and switches. I was thinking of grounding the crap out of this location, but it looks like David did that and it did not help much. Scottie -- Original Message -- From: David Hulsebus cont...@portative.net Reply-To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:09:58 -0400 I looked at a Transtector unit a few weeks ago. It's an isolation transformer that sits outdoors between the entrance panel and our internal electrical system. It was roughly $1K for the unit. Kind of wish I would have bought it now. We are the end of the line on the power grid and have 1-3 days of outages multiple times a year, that's the real reason for the battery solution; that and we are tired of generators. Your right though. Most cell and radio towers I visit have just that, an isolation transformer at the entrance panel. Thanks, Dave cc...@dot11net.com wrote: Since it sounds like this came in on the AC, how about a surge protector on incoming AC line? We've had sites where the power company's grounding is so bad we've lost power supply surge protectors in just about every storm that comes through the area...until we put surge protection at the breaker box. Now all is good. Cameron Don't feel too left Chuck out we lost a tower site in the same storm. Second time in seven years a total loss. Both times we've lost our gear it has come via the electrical side. Our tower gets hit by a strike or two almost every storm and we never have issues. This time it literaly blew the entrance panel off the side of the building and outlets off the walls of the building. Cracked one of the APC batterty units, every ethernet surge suppressor and every grounded POE injectors were blown apart. Interesting that our four coax arrestors were okay, but the gear was cooked. Most of the cat5 ends included. Had spare gear on the tower plugged in at the radios but dangling in the building, we fired it up and were in operation within a few minutes. Took another 16 hours to get all of the damage cleaned up. We have on that site forty-five 3/4 ground rods in two concentric circles around the tower and building none more than eight feet apart; all interconnected with #2 bare stranded wire and cad welded. Inside the building - a halo ring and 3 1/2 copper strapping, the list goes on and on for what we have done to minimize issues. We spent nearly 5K on grounding and still lost it all. We are moving to total battery power next week. I am looking for something I can use to isolate a smart charger from the power company when we see storms in the area, I expect we will have enough battery for a minimum 3 days runtime. Some type of relay that we can control remotely I would guess. If it makes you feel any better Verizon Wireless took total loses on four towers between Cincinnati and Louisville Tuesday as well. Dave Hulsebus Portative Technologies, LLC Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had
[WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
On the Motorola list someone said that by using shielded connectors/cable and soldering the drain wire on both ends they haven't lost anything to lightning in Colorado OR Costa Rica (per him via NOAA the two of three worst areas for lightning in North America). Might just want to pull up that archive and read through the discussion. Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:31 AM, Chuck Hogg ch...@shelbybb.com wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
Nextel spends tens or hundreds of thousands per device. Our stuff is cheaper than cheap. Get off of the TOP of the tower. Polyphaser has a great lightning white paper. If you can be 10' below the top you'll be much more protected. Also, I've had good luck lately with ferrite beads. And ground everything. Ground it again. and again and again. You might also want to consider adding a static dissipater on the top of the tower to help keep the lightning away in the first place. http://www.affordable-solar.com/gs-1.brush.lightning.dissipator.htm http://www.eriinc.com/products/btss/CA21831A_10.pdf I think Hutton carries something too. marlon - Original Message - From: Chuck Hogg ch...@shelbybb.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 7:31 AM Subject: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
We've added a 2/0 (I think) insulated copper wire from the tower top rod to the grounding at the bottom. This has helped a great deal at the two towers we've done it at. The current will go mostly through this instead of mostly on the tower framework (or your shielding). It was about $3/foot, and a similar amount for installation labor. The cell phone guys usually also run their own heavy duty ground down their cable management ladder next to their coaxes, probably for similar purposes. We can't do this everywhere for various reasons, and we've lost a lot of money on lighting damage in July. On Wed, Aug 05, 2009 at 10:31:42AM -0400, Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- /* Jason Philbrook | Midcoast Internet Solutions - Wireless and DSL KB1IOJ| Broadband Internet Access, Dialup, and Hosting http://f64.nu/ | for Midcoast Mainehttp://www.midcoast.com/ */ WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Direct Lightning Strikes
We did something similar on a tower where we had a PacWireless SO24-xx antenna at the top. Ran a piece of 10AWG up so it stuck up about 1 foot above the antenna. Never took a lightning hit. Can't say so much for the wind, though. Blew the cover off one day. jp wrote: We've added a 2/0 (I think) insulated copper wire from the tower top rod to the grounding at the bottom. This has helped a great deal at the two towers we've done it at. The current will go mostly through this instead of mostly on the tower framework (or your shielding). It was about $3/foot, and a similar amount for installation labor. The cell phone guys usually also run their own heavy duty ground down their cable management ladder next to their coaxes, probably for similar purposes. We can't do this everywhere for various reasons, and we've lost a lot of money on lighting damage in July. On Wed, Aug 05, 2009 at 10:31:42AM -0400, Chuck Hogg wrote: Has anyone been able to withstand a direct lightning strike? We had a tower get hit last night, and some of our equipment lost Ethernet ports (RB/433AH), and we lost 3 canopy APs, but that is all (considering what is all up there only 2/3rds was blown). Our Trango AP survived and a RB/433AH survived. Even Nextel had their guys out there, but they just had to reset alarms it appears as nothing was fried on their end. I wish I had to just reset alarms. So tell me, what do you do ? I'm tired of dumping a few grand during big lightning storms. I do the basics, Ethernet surge suppression up top and on the bottom, Polyphasers, ground out to the ground bars, ground out the cat5 cable, and no omni's. Regards, Chuck Hogg Shelby Broadband 502-722-9292 ch...@shelbybb.com http://www.shelbybb.com WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.44/2283 - Release Date: 08/05/09 05:57:00 -- Scott Reed Sr. Systems Engineer GAB Midwest 1-800-363-1544 x4000 Cell: 260-273-7239 WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
