Tzikas, The only way to be certain your equipment is protected is to disconnect it. By this I mean that you should disconnect all of your equipment from the antenna, the station ground, and the AC mains when you're not using it. Lightning surges can enter through any of these paths. If the station ground is connected while either the mains or the antenna is connected, the surge can arrive through one of these and end its path at the station ground, after doing a lot of damage along the way. Remember, too, that surges can arrive even during fair weather conditions. T-storms don't have to be in the vicinity.
Some other thoughts: An RF choke across the coax is there to protect against a short in the collector/drain blocking capacitor in the amp. Not against incoming lightning surges. A lightining "protector" in series with the coax mainly protects the coax from over-voltage breakdowns. It may offer some protection for the equipment, but unless it is installed properly, it will accomplish little or nothing. Sorry to see that you took such a bad hit. Hope you can get everything running again soon. 73, Brad KV5V On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 10:21 AM, tzikas tzik <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello. I have a amplifier for 160m. 3 days ago a storm strikes my > transmitting area, and two lightnings strikes one of the building wherein i > have install > my vertical antenna's support rope. This building has lightning protect. The > result of these strikes was to cause damage to my amplifier. In particular > all of the output mosfets destroyed. My ground system is a single copper > ground rode, 1,5m length. > Here you can see the antenna tuner: > http://natural-gas.webs.com/antenna-tuner.JPG > I am using for protect against antenna high voltage charges a 2.5mH r.f > choke which is connected between antenna feedpoint and ground system. > But after these results i suppose that it isn't works well. I am looking for > an idea, or a cheap product to improve the lightnings charges protect > for my equipment. Thank you in advance. > _______________________________________________ > UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK > _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
