Lightning 2 WiSP 0

Sometimes I wonder if we're not cursed.. This happened last wednsday. The lightning struck a tree across the street from our tower and was induced into the power lines. Three houses suffered serious losses in TV's, VCR's, Computers, etc. This hit was not as bad moniterily as the last, but the strike itself appears to be more severe.

Losses:
Small APC battery backup
Power Surge Suppressor
900mhz WaveRider AP
Junk switch (was there to provide access inside building)
2.4ghz AP & Backhaul
3 patch cables


Whats left of a couple power supplies:



Patch Cable:


WaveRider AP:


Power Surge Suppressor: Notice switch & ground LED are gone. Also notice to damaged caused by the exploding power supplies


Switch:


A few parts that were found lying around:


Linkage to the 900mhz passive filter, it survived, but notice the burn marks from where the AP was sitting on top of it..
Filter burn marks

Dayum, absolutely nuked your WiSP

Bury that thing underground, man

Wow, nature didn't like you. Poor little electronics didn't stand a chance.

anyway you could rig something almost like a lightning rod on top that would allow the electricity to travel down the tower saftely into the ground without frying your hardware again?

Jeez man, not again!!!

Keeps getting worse every time!

dicecca112 said:

anyway you could rig something almost like a lightning rod on top that would allow the electricity to travel down the tower saftely into the ground without frying your hardware again?

Click to expand...

We use 'Tower Jacks', which look like large bottle brushes that are attached to the tops of the towers. Their purpose is to help dispate any charge the tower may build up.

The tower & lightning protectors are grounded to a single point. In this instance though, the strike came through the power lines and not the tower side. None of the tower side of the equipment showed any damage, only the side that faced the power. None of the protectors on any of the antennas were popped nor was the amplifier on the AP.

I plan on going back out there this week and check the grounding on the power coiming into the building. The building doesn't belong to us and I didn't bother checking the ground at the meter when we installed our tower. I assumed the building ground was correct since the building is only a few years old, but I suspect that the grounding is non-existant or inadequate and I'll end up having to re-do their building ground.

sheesh man, how tall is your tower? Our main tower is 500 feet and we have only had one problem. I wonder if that tower isn't grounded right. You still using trango stuff?

That particular tower is only 80' (of rohn 45 - self supporting ).

It has a 2.4ghz ap (horizontally polarized) and our 900mhz ap, it is right in the middle of town so the height wasn't a huge concern and the tower was initially just going to be used for 900.

I went out there today and it looks like the tree beside our tower took a hit as well, it is already dieing.