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WJEP Hit By Lightning

W

WJEPPD

On July 31st there was quite a strong thunderstorm that rolled thru the Thomasville and Ochlocknee area. Not much rain came along with the storm but there was alot of lightning. There were areas that got more rain than others. WJEP was in testing mode on their backup transmitter at the time of the storm and zap, took at least one if not 2 direct hits to the tower. This knocked out one of the power modules which shorted everything else in the transmitter out. There was sufficient grounding and surge protection to take numerous hits but this just goes to show that no matter how good your protection you can still get equipment cooked to order. For more information on it all head over to the website at www.rockmewoody.com . The station will be back up by midweek and will continue to stream in the meantime and be up to full 10KW power once the sale closes with the FCC in Mid September or the first week of October...


More as it all develops,

Onward and Upward,

Woody Nelson
229-584-0040
 
Thank you to everyone that has sent me personal messages regarding our lightning strike. I truly appreciate the support. Isn't radio a blast? I love it...
 
Correct me if I'm not seeing something here, but if the station was broadcasting with their back up transmitter, isn't there a main transmitter around there somewhere that can be used?
 
kyscott said:
Correct me if I'm not seeing something here, but if the station was broadcasting with their back up transmitter, isn't there a main transmitter around there somewhere that can be used?
Click to expand...

The main transmitter is blown. The new main transmitter is on order scheduled to arrive right at closing of the pending station sale. The old main transmitter is a Harris MW-10A which was bad when we entered in to buy this station which had been dark since November of 2007
 
We learned earlier than the main transmitter was damaged earlier by a lightning strike and is waiting to be replaced. They seem to have a lot of lightning problems with that tower. I wonder if the lightning arc gap is set too wide and lets the strike into the transmitter rather than quenched by arcing to ground. I also wonder how good their ground system is?

As an engineer I would like to take a look at that entire transmitter plant. They are having too many problems there. I'm going to have to call Woody. The engineer in me just has to find the answer to this one.
 
Charlie Gee said:
We learned earlier than the main transmitter was damaged earlier by a lightning strike and is waiting to be replaced. They seem to have a lot of lightning problems with that tower. I wonder if the lightning arc gap is set too wide and lets the strike into the transmitter rather than quenched by arcing to ground. I also wonder how good their ground system is?

As an engineer I would like to take a look at that entire transmitter plant. They are having too many problems there. I'm going to have to call Woody. The engineer in me just has to find the answer to this one.
Click to expand...

That would be great. I will be at the station this evening working on streaming and scheduling etc and can be reached at 229-584-0040...
 
Charlie Gee said:
We learned earlier than the main transmitter was damaged earlier by a lightning strike and is waiting to be replaced. They seem to have a lot of lightning problems with that tower. I wonder if the lightning arc gap is set too wide and lets the strike into the transmitter rather than quenched by arcing to ground. I also wonder how good their ground system is?

As an engineer I would like to take a look at that entire transmitter plant. They are having too many problems there. I'm going to have to call Woody. The engineer in me just has to find the answer to this one.
Click to expand...

I will be at the station after 6pm eastern
 
With this many lightning problems, first thing I'd check is proper grounding. I'd be willing to bet neither transmitter has any kind of ground strap attached to it. Much less grounding on the tower and rest of the equipment.
 
kyscott said:
With this many lightning problems, first thing I'd check is proper grounding. I'd be willing to bet neither transmitter has any kind of ground strap attached to it. Much less grounding on the tower and rest of the equipment.
Click to expand...

Both transmitters were more than sufficiently grounded and the tower as well. Now the quality of the grounds due to age or corrosion is another isue entirely. We are going thru the entire layout of the building and reverse engineering it to troubleshoot the entire system.
 
kyscott said:
With this many lightning problems, first thing I'd check is proper grounding. I'd be willing to bet neither transmitter has any kind of ground strap attached to it. Much less grounding on the tower and rest of the equipment.
Click to expand...

The Grounding has been repaired. Just an FYI, there are some really big losers on another bulleting board posting their propoganda. One idiot went as far as to say we had no lightning while he is many miles away sitting in an igloo hunting moose unemployed in Michigan or something. What is funny is this moron thinks that Moultrie and Thomasville have the exact weather and as we all know down here that storms can pop up anywhere and nail one area while others just a few miles away are bone dry. These people have no lives and I hope they stay banned from this board but I have a feeling a few will slide in cleverly so we must remain vigilant...P.S. We had several lightning strikes on July 31st in the afternoon verified by doppler,The FAA, and several eyewitnesses both in Thomasville and several people out at the station physically...
 
WJEPPD said:
kyscott said:
With this many lightning problems, first thing I'd check is proper grounding. I'd be willing to bet neither transmitter has any kind of ground strap attached to it. Much less grounding on the tower and rest of the equipment.
Click to expand...

The Grounding has been repaired. Just an FYI, there are some really big losers on another bulleting board posting their propoganda. One idiot went as far as to say we had no lightning while he is many miles away sitting in an igloo hunting moose unemployed in Michigan or something. What is funny is this moron thinks that Moultrie and Thomasville have the exact weather and as we all know down here that storms can pop up anywhere and nail one area while others just a few miles away are bone dry. These people have no lives and I hope they stay banned from this board but I have a feeling a few will slide in cleverly so we must remain vigilant...P.S. We had several lightning strikes on July 31st in the afternoon verified by doppler,The FAA, and several eyewitnesses both in Thomasville and several people out at the station physically...
Click to expand...

Ha! I used to work at WALB (and Fox 31). If you remember, both towers used to stand within 100 yards of each other in Doerun (which is also why they both eventually wound up on the ground). When I was at channel 10, we took a direct hit to our tower (I know, I was standing next to the transmitter at the time), but Fox 31's tower went unscathed.

What kind of shape did you find the ground system in?
 
kyscott said:
WJEPPD said:
kyscott said:
With this many lightning problems, first thing I'd check is proper grounding. I'd be willing to bet neither transmitter has any kind of ground strap attached to it. Much less grounding on the tower and rest of the equipment.
Click to expand...

The Grounding has been repaired. Just an FYI, there are some really big losers on another bulleting board posting their propoganda. One idiot went as far as to say we had no lightning while he is many miles away sitting in an igloo hunting moose unemployed in Michigan or something. What is funny is this moron thinks that Moultrie and Thomasville have the exact weather and as we all know down here that storms can pop up anywhere and nail one area while others just a few miles away are bone dry. These people have no lives and I hope they stay banned from this board but I have a feeling a few will slide in cleverly so we must remain vigilant...P.S. We had several lightning strikes on July 31st in the afternoon verified by doppler,The FAA, and several eyewitnesses both in Thomasville and several people out at the station physically...
Click to expand...

Ha! I used to work at WALB (and Fox 31). If you remember, both towers used to stand within 100 yards of each other in Doerun (which is also why they both eventually wound up on the ground). When I was at channel 10, we took a direct hit to our tower (I know, I was standing next to the transmitter at the time), but Fox 31's tower went unscathed.

What kind of shape did you find the ground system in?
Click to expand...

The ground seems to be not as bad as we thought. The Radials of the tower however are a bit suspect. The building is grounded fine. More will be known by Monday
 
WJEPPD said:
kyscott said:
WJEPPD said:
kyscott said:
With this many lightning problems, first thing I'd check is proper grounding. I'd be willing to bet neither transmitter has any kind of ground strap attached to it. Much less grounding on the tower and rest of the equipment.
Click to expand...

The Grounding has been repaired. Just an FYI, there are some really big losers on another bulleting board posting their propoganda. One idiot went as far as to say we had no lightning while he is many miles away sitting in an igloo hunting moose unemployed in Michigan or something. What is funny is this moron thinks that Moultrie and Thomasville have the exact weather and as we all know down here that storms can pop up anywhere and nail one area while others just a few miles away are bone dry. These people have no lives and I hope they stay banned from this board but I have a feeling a few will slide in cleverly so we must remain vigilant...P.S. We had several lightning strikes on July 31st in the afternoon verified by doppler,The FAA, and several eyewitnesses both in Thomasville and several people out at the station physically...
Click to expand...

Ha! I used to work at WALB (and Fox 31). If you remember, both towers used to stand within 100 yards of each other in Doerun (which is also why they both eventually wound up on the ground). When I was at channel 10, we took a direct hit to our tower (I know, I was standing next to the transmitter at the time), but Fox 31's tower went unscathed.

What kind of shape did you find the ground system in?
Click to expand...

The ground seems to be not as bad as we thought. The Radials of the tower however are a bit suspect. The building is grounded fine. More will be known by Monday
Click to expand...

bad, broken or missing radials will effect your signal more than anything else. They don't do all that much for lightning protection.
 
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