[BC] Charge Dissipation Devices

[Phil Alexander]

One of the places where CTS/ESE devices SEEM to work well is on 
towers. Everyone who has used them seems to have good things to 
say about them.

However, they are oversold as providing protection over wide areas
that evidence shows are poorly protected in the general lightning
protection market. They are adamantly opposed as relying on "junk
science" by the professionals of that field, and have been rejected
by both the NFPA and IEEE for specification consideration during
the past two or three years - IEEE more recently, NFPA some time
previously.

There has been a continuing saga of ESE protection products on the
Lightning Protection and Power Quality list for a very long time.
See: LightningProtection at yahoogroups.com for more information.

It is apparently the standard practice of the promoters of these
products to say approvals are "pending" and vigorously attack
anyone who questions their claims. However, they have been denied
any recognition by all professional agencies involved, and there
are known cases where these devices have failed to protect causing
removal and replacement with Franklin rods.

Never-the-less, they do seem to have some value on tall thin
structures such as towers. One of the major problems is when they
are hit they seem to be destroyed or heavily damaged. For this
reason, it might be prudent to combine them with conventional
rods, putting both on top of a tower.

Phil Alexander, CSRE 
Broadcast Engineering Services and Technology 
(a Div. of Advanced Parts Corporation) 
Ph. (317) 335-2065   FAX (317) 335-9037

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On 11 May 2005 at 0:30, Mario Hieb, P.E. wrote:

> Does anyone have test data on these devices?
> 
> If charge is actually dissipated, a current flows and this should be 
> measurable.
> 
> 
> Mario
> 
> 
> 
> At 11:01 PM 5/10/2005, you wrote:
> >Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 20:07:57 -0400
> >From: "Bruce Doerle" <bdoerle at mail.ucf.edu>
> >Subject: [BC] Lightning Prevention?????
> >To: <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> >Cc: dwhitehair at WI.RR.COM
> >
> >Fellow broadcasters,
> >
> >Last week there was a brief debate on the merits of Charge Dissipation 
> >Devices (ie lightning prevention or avoidance systems).  The debate 
> >started in response to a message from Mr. Dana Whitehair of KUT, 
> >University of Texas.  Mr. Whitehair's message, mine, and others are shown 
> >below this initial paragraph grouping.
> >
> >Of course, this raised some hairs on the manufacturer's of these products 
> >and number of messages took place in public and behind the scenes.  The 
> >end product of these messages attacked me and eluded to testimonials as 
> >evidence that their products work.  Most engineers and scientist know that 
> >CTS and ESE products do not work; they have not been endorsed by any 
> >professional scientific, regulatory, or standards body.  The manufacturers 
> >offer no scientific proof of their theories and claim their products 
> >performance by using testimonials as evidence that the product 
> >works.  However, there is a significant fault in this logic.  The 
> >testimonials are from unknowing persons who lack the knowledge to 
> >understand this questionable, unproven technology.

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