[BC] AM transmitter lightning sensitivity issue

[Barry Mishkind]

Greg,

Others may mention this too, but one of the important things to check 
is the arc gap at the tower. I had a similar situation a few years 
back where the 5 kW cycled and dumped off whenever a storm got close. 
Before I arrived, it was so bad, I'm told, that when a storm 
approached, they would just switch to the auxiliary (21E) ... and 
sometimes forget to go back.

In the end, the solution was to check and reset the ball-gaps at each 
tower. From that day until long after I left, the transmitter never 
dropped off due to storm nor static.

At 10:41 AM 5/21/2008, Gregory Muir, wrote
>Within my station group I have a Harris Gates Five AM transmitter 
>which exhibits an unusual sensitivity to local lightning storm 
>events.  Upon the appearance of a storm, the transmitter will begin 
>to automatically lower it's output power through the power 
>adjustment range with each lightning strike until it finally goes 
>off the air after reaching the lowest power setting.