2 Apr
2024
2 Apr
'24
12:18 p.m.
On 2024-04-02 11:01, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
On 4/2/24 00:03, Just Kant via cctalk wrote:
I maintained a ham repeater that had 6 x 800 Ah lead acid station cells
for power backup. One time, it was down days after a storm, so my chief
engineer at work (also a ham) and I went up to investigate. The
repeater was still running on batteries, but as we approached we saw the
entire glass enclosure of the meter was covered internally with melted
copper! We attributed its survival to extremely good grounding,
including a mesh underneath the shack, and the fact that all the power
to the radios went through that extremely low impedance battery source
to ground!
73 de Nigel ve3id
--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591
Accordimg to certain individuals on this list,
going back a few
years, electronics/computers can be damaged due to an electrical
storm, presumably very intense activity, even while off. Go look
through the archives.
I have had two incidents where nearby lightning strikes blew out
components on gear I had. Many years ago, I had two computers
connected by a parallel port cable, and chips on both ends were popped
by a strike that might have hit power lines about two blocks away.
About a decade ago, we had a lightning strike that hit trees half a
block away. It took out an ethernet port on one computer, and blew
out a bunch of stuff on a burglar alarm I had built. Both involved
long wire runs.
Jon