[BC] AM transmitter lightning sensitivity issue

[Cowboy]

On Thursday 22 May 2008 12:55 pm, Gregory Muir wrote:

>  I'm not disregarding the suggestions that all of you have offered.  I have 
>  noted them.  Being from an analytical background, my mind is working on how 
>  to implement a simple instrumentation system to see what is happening when 
>  these events occur. 

 The transmitter responds to events getting to the transmitter.
 I'd simply hang a scope on the output through a 10K resistor or so.

>  I happened to have a tower climber on site who decided to "test" the 
>  transmitter while it was on the air by tapping his Crescent wrench across 
>  the Johnny balls.  The transmitter immediately shut down without first going 
>  through the power reduction cycles it normally executes.  This was the first 
>  event that started me to thinking about how there could be a possibility 
>  that the transmitter VSWR circuitry had been designed too sensitive for an 
>  average field environment.

 This is not necessarily wrong.
 Something like a Crescent wrench is a hard short, symptomatic of
 a catastrophic problem. A total shut-down isn't necessarily an error.
 In fact, the mismatch is so great, the shut down may have been due to
 a combination of overloads ( Ep, Ip ) in addition to VSWR.
 It may also have gone through all of its counts so fast the wrench appeared
 to be a continuous short, and not a series of faults.

-- 
Cowboy