Old post, but I was just sent an email asking for comment.
I'm the Chief Engineer of KRCX. In March, during a really ugly storm, Lightning struck the upper bay of the ERI antenna and melted several holes in the antenna including a dime size hole in one element, allowing water to enter the whole antenna system and the coax cable. I received the notification around 3 AM that the main transmitter was off and the coax cable was not holding pressure. I knew that was bad. I tried switching to the aux transmitter just in case, same thing. Napped until 5 AM then got up and headed to the Buttes in a horrendous storm to be there at sunup and assess the damage.
I was able to make it to the site at approximately 07:00 in absolutely horrendous weather. Discovered very high reflected power. Examined the part of the feedline at ground level, and found a hole melted through the outer pipe of the elbow just outside the building where the cable enters. Decided to take the hardline apart at that elbow and inspect. The inside of the elbow looked like a BBQ pit. This was obviously going to be ugly.
I called corporate and the market GM and updated. I then started calling all the tower guys I knew. P&R was out of state up north, but Howell could be there the next morning. So I scheduled them for 08:00 the next morning.
After allowing the water to drain out of the heliax, I reconnected it to the hardline sections and replaced the hardline elbow. I went inside and pressed "on" and crossed my fingers. The FAX3 came on and started to ramp up power, but when it got to 100 watts, it shut itself down. The tube-type aux wouldn't run at all. So I set the main output power level to 100 watts max and pressed "on". It came up and stayed on. Good enough for now.
KRCX main showed 100 watts forward, 87 watts reflected. Do the math.
The next morning, I was waiting for the tower crew at the gate. They arrived at 07:20 hrs. We began the trip to the top. Weather was rainy but less windy. As if God was watching, just as the climbers started heading up, the rain stopped. The TV station was off the air, so no worries of RF level on the tower.
First, I had the tower crew install a dummy load on the end of the heliax and I swept the line. Return loss was horrible. So I used the TDR and checked "distance to fault". It found multiple faults all along the line. It just got uglier. The good news is, the coax was not shorted, it just wasn't 50 ohms anymore. And it had return loss dips everywhere.
The tower crew texted me pictures of the antenna damage. This was as ugly as I thought. I asked the condition of the bottom bay and was informed it looked OK. I asked the tower crew to remove the top bay and interbay 3-1/8" section and send them down, then move the shorting stub from the top bay to the bottom bay. Then, with one bay only, I pressed "on". The FAX 3 would run reliably at 250 watts forward and 90 reflected (do the math). At 300 forward, it would trip off. So I left it at 250 watts and ordered a new antenna and cable with expedite on both. Entravision is excellent about spending money for emergencies, so I just did it. I called the corporate boss and told him what I did and got a compliment for being on top of it.
It took just about a month to build and ship the antenna.
New antenna arrived but the cable did not. Come to find out, a middle manager did not agree with an engineer with 39 years of experience that the cable was damaged also, and paused the order. After giving my direct supervisor a severe verbal lashing, including suggesting he perform an act on himself of reproductive nature, I called the freight company and got the coax spool headed my way again.
The new antenna went up first but with the damaged cable still. Now KRCX would run 500 watts forward and about 200 reflected, but it ran OK. A week later, the spool showed up so the tower crew came back again and swapped the cable out. I swept it and had 43 dB return loss at 99.9 MHz. I disconnected my adapter and connected the hardline to the antenna switch. After they got about 50 feet below the antenna, I hit "on". 3,000 watts forward, 1.3 reflected.
My former direct supervisor suggested they fire me for "insubordination". But I'm still here and I report instead directly to his boss now.
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