Re: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
Hi Guys, I don't particularly care for MOVs because of their inherent wearout mechanism. When the voltage across a MOV reaches the breakover point, the MOV conducts and turns the excess energy into heat. Problem is, its breakover voltage then increases and it will allow more of the transient to pass next time. If a MOV sees enough action, the equipment protection is compromised and you won't know it. They are cheap, however, and better than no protection at all. 73, Bob, WA9FBO ** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
Re: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
Eric / Don, Eric you are so right; A properly designed electrical distribution system--. However many systems are not designed properly and more are not maintained properly! It is left up to the customer to correct for these problems. Many 4kv systems just ahead of the pole transformers do not have transient protection and none have noise elimination devices. Everything the power companies do is all related to their cost and they want to keep it to as low a value as possible. For the customer, where the power companies responsibility stops and the customers begin, there needs to be a lighting/transient protection of some kind. Isolation transformers are not always necessary unless the electronic equipment is critical or susceptible to transients. There are some isolation transformers that provide 60 to 70 db isolation and a ferro-resonant transformer that also provides for line voltage fluxuations. Sola transformers are a good example. As an engineer in the 60's, I started using Sola's transformers on all remote located equipment with a transient protector on the primary of the Sola with excellent results. I also used Josylan protectors on three phase deep well pumps with excellent results. If the power companies did better maintenance, we hams would not have to lead them to their noise problems. Lighting transients can be picked up by power lines due to large ground currents and cause problems in all electrical systems, no matter how well the electrical system is designed and maintained. Don; there are solutions to your problems, you just have to do some research and find them. Fred W5VAY - Original Message - From: Eric Lemmon To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:21 PM Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don KA9QJG Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:55 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks Don KA9QJG
RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
I have to agree and disagree. I agree there are many gimmick line conditioners out there. ! agree the utility should provide a proper distribution system. I somewhat agree that converting to 14VDC and floating a battery should help. The big transformer on the power supply should do a nice job with that. Here's where I disagree: There are many different levels of power conditioning. Don did not ask for just a straight surge protector. He asked about a power conditioner. While most power conditioners have some type of surge protection, surge protectors do not do anything in the way of line conditioning. I'm not going to pretend to be smarter than I am, but one of the most important things I have experienced that good power conditioners do is filtering of noise and stray voltages that often get sent to ground by poorly designed equipment and crappy power supplies (Typically switchers) somewhere on the local power grid. The noise and voltages can really hose things up with many of todays sensitive microprocessor based equipment, where ground is supposed to be a clean and absolute reference. Thru expierence I have had control and pc based equipment be very flaky without good power conditioning. Add a good power conditioner and it works very stable. I also work with very high resolution display devices, and the differences a good power conditioner can make with those is very noticible to even an untrained eye. In fixed pixel devices like Plasma or LCD good line conditioning can reduce noise and grainyness VERY easily seen by the most basic grayscale test patterns. I cannot explain totally why, I'm not that smart (but I bet someone else on the list probably can), but I can say I have seen the difference on a daily basis. As for the surge protection component, you do not know where the surge or spike enters into the line. If it enters in on the users side there is nothing the utility can do about that. I have seen more than a fair share of instances where the local surge protector took the hit instead of the equipment. And the better surge devices use other methods than an MOV to do it now in much better fashions. Surge devices that only use cheep MOV's (the $10 hardware store type) do not suppress many of the smaller or quicker spikes that come down the line, and employing the MOV design itself has been proven to contaminate ground with noise and stray voltages, again screwing with those sensitive devices. As a side note- if there was something that the utility does not have right, good luck in trying to get them to correct it! You need to be a pretty big fish to get their attention, no matter how wrong they are! We had a client that was having all sorts of power problems. We rented a logging AC meter and plugged it in at his location, and there were periods in the summer where he would be at 98VAC for periods of an hour or more! ComEd (our local utility) when presented with the evidence said unfortunatly sir, the feed to his area was not designed for the humber of houses there now, but since theres only 7 houses (There were 7 10k+ sq ft houses, I would gress all with 400A service) it's not likely it will be changed. Not enough revenue to justify the infrastructure in their eyes. He screamed and hollered for more than a year, even took some legal action, but evantually gave up and moved. Now- How relavant any of this is to an amateur grade repeater, I don't know. Will any user notice any real difference? Probably not. But I would be willing to guess as controllers get more elaborate and microprocessor based it may come into play at some point. I just think simply dismissing powerconditioning in general as a gimmic is an incorrect statement. Tom W9SRV Eric Lemmon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY - Boardwalk for $500? In
RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
Fred, Thanks for the vote of confidence! I think that the underlying message is that anyone who is paying for electrical power has a right to expect clean and stable power. I don't care if the power problem is at the end of a 20-mile-long single-phase tap that is along a nearly-impassable gravel road- the Public Utilities Commission in every State of the Union has rules that utilities must obey. If phone calls don't get action, write letters to the utility. If letters to the utility don't get action, write to the PUC. If letters to the PUC don't get action, write to a legislator. If it was MY site that had a problem, I'd be kicking some serious butt. But that's just my way- I don't tolerate inaction or lame excuses. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Fred Seamans Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:51 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Eric / Don, Eric you are so right; A properly designed electrical distribution system--. However many systems are not designed properly and more are not maintained properly! It is left up to the customer to correct for these problems. Many 4kv systems just ahead of the pole transformers do not have transient protection and none have noise elimination devices. Everything the power companies do is all related to their cost and they want to keep it to as low a value as possible. For the customer, where the power companies responsibility stops and the customers begin, there needs to be a lighting/transient protection of some kind. Isolation transformers are not always necessary unless the electronic equipment is critical or susceptible to transients. There are some isolation transformers that provide 60 to 70 db isolation and a ferro-resonant transformer that also provides for line voltage fluxuations. Sola transformers are a good example. As an engineer in the 60's, I started using Sola's transformers on all remote located equipment with a transient protector on the primary of the Sola with excellent results. I also used Josylan protectors on three phase deep well pumps with excellent results. If the power companies did better maintenance, we hams would not have to lead them to their noise problems. Lighting transients can be picked up by power lines due to large ground currents and cause problems in all electrical systems, no matter how well the electrical system is designed and maintained. Don; there are solutions to your problems, you just have to do some research and find them. Fred W5VAY - Original Message - From: Eric Lemmon mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:21 PM Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com [mailto:Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com ] On Behalf Of Don KA9QJG Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:55 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks
RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
Back in the 70's I worked as an Engr for a broadcast AM/FM station. One day after a bad storm the night before, there was a message that during the storm, the evening DJ had seen some flashes in the control room from one of the equipment racks. Each of our 19 inch racks had power coming in at the bottom to conduit running up the rack with 4x outlet boxes at several points up the back side of the rack to the top. The chief Engr had us wire up MOV's to 110V AC plugs and stick an MOV into one of the outlets at each box leaving the other three for equipment to plug into. Looking at the rack, all of the equipment in the rack was working fine except a pilot light of one unit. Opening up the back, the outlet box at the bottom had two prongs sticking out where the MOV had been the rest of the AC plug and MOV were gone. The next box up the MOV was black instead of red but intact and the AC plug was fine. The MOV at the top of the rack looked completely normal. The only other damage in the control room was a black arc mark between the bail of an HP freq counter and the rack it was sitting on top of. Seeing what had happened to those MOV's and seeing that all the equipment in the rack still worked fine made me a believer in using MOV's. John Lock kf0m at arrl.net -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Eric Lemmon Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:21 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don KA9QJG Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:55 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks Don KA9QJG Yahoo! Groups Links
RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
John, What a coincidence! I was Chief Engineer at WLRW in Urbana, IL, from 1968-70, and we, too, had some really severe lightning storms during my tenure. Thanks to well-designed equipment, we did not have to add any MOV devices to any of our power feeds. Also, we put the onus for surge protection on our power provider- Illinois Power. Once our power provider understood that it was THEIR responsibility to provide us surge-free power, they reluctantly complied. After IP got the message we had no further instances of power surges or equipment damage. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of kf0m Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:39 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Back in the 70's I worked as an Engr for a broadcast AM/FM station. One day after a bad storm the night before, there was a message that during the storm, the evening DJ had seen some flashes in the control room from one of the equipment racks. Each of our 19 inch racks had power coming in at the bottom to conduit running up the rack with 4x outlet boxes at several points up the back side of the rack to the top. The chief Engr had us wire up MOV's to 110V AC plugs and stick an MOV into one of the outlets at each box leaving the other three for equipment to plug into. Looking at the rack, all of the equipment in the rack was working fine except a pilot light of one unit. Opening up the back, the outlet box at the bottom had two prongs sticking out where the MOV had been the rest of the AC plug and MOV were gone. The next box up the MOV was black instead of red but intact and the AC plug was fine. The MOV at the top of the rack looked completely normal. The only other damage in the control room was a black arc mark between the bail of an HP freq counter and the rack it was sitting on top of. Seeing what had happened to those MOV's and seeing that all the equipment in the rack still worked fine made me a believer in using MOV's. John Lock kf0m at arrl.net -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com [mailto:Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com ]On Behalf Of Eric Lemmon Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:21 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com [mailto:Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com ] On Behalf Of Don KA9QJG Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:55 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks Don KA9QJG Yahoo! Groups Links
[Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks Don KA9QJG
RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don KA9QJG Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:55 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks Don KA9QJG
RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:21:21 -0700 Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner Don, Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge suppressors where they are completely unnecessary. It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for protection. If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, you should be okay. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY As an adjunct we recently suffered a huge storm strike very close to the house (5 metres destroying a tree) , now I really don't know if the Belkin protector boards really worked or it was luck but most of the light bulbs expired but nothing connected to the Belkin boards did and some of the gear which was not died a bad death , comments ? I guess the power supply around here is reasonable then :) -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Don KA9QJG Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:55 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner I Would like some input on What some are using for a AC Line Conditioner not a UPS , For a Repeater site that may not have the Cleanest AC Coming in . I do have a 50 Amp Astron with the Battery Backup on a Battery. I know that should Clean most things up, But I am a little concerned about what’s coming in. on the AC, I also have Great grounding and a Poly Phaser on the Antenna Side. Thanks Don KA9QJG _ Win tix to see Crowded House live at the Greek Theatre, LA! http://ninemsn.com.au/share/redir/adTrack.asp?mode=clickclientID=800referral=windowslivehotmailtaglineURL=http://music.ninemsn.com.au/crowdedhouse
