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2 radios killed because of static on antenna?

Static buildup from other than lightning such as cold dry winds should NEVER happen. Any radio I have seen has a choke from the antenna connector (or similar point on the PC board) to ground which prevents gradual buildup of static. I still think it is piss poor design causing the issue more than the actual device itself.
 
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Funnily enough the European president jackson 2 had the exact same problem, it was also uniden made, and if i recall the issue was far more common, if not only, when used on fibreglass antennas, i don't recall anyone having it on an aluminium antenna but i may be wrong.


as an added afterthought,

if seeking a cure i'd be reading up on rf chokes and googling "antenna static bleeder" (usually high value in megaohms/high voltage in kilovolts resistor/s), fibreglass cb antennas ain't the only ones that suffer from static build up.
 
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I always put my coax to the radios to ground threw the coax switch or just put the end in a mason jar and say fuck it... Nothing survives a direct hit though!
 
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Zman said:
I always put my coax to the radios to ground threw the coax switch or just put the end in a mason jar and say fuck it... Nothing survives a direct hit though!
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About 99.99% of commercial installations and thousands upon thousands of hams would prove you wrong. It does not take a huge amount of time or money to do it but it has to be done right. Then and only then can you take a direct hit and be unscathed. I had many hits on commercial broadcast sites and never went off the air except for a couple seconds when the SWR over limit circuit tripped during the strike. The transmitter read the high voltage as a high SWR.
 
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O tool a hit back in 1973 and never have a radio hooked up over night or when i know its going to be strming...not worth it.A few missed stations on the radio is worth replacing radios...73 de JW
 
Captain Kilowatt said:
About 99.99% of commercial installations and thousands upon thousands of hams would prove you wrong. It does not take a huge amount of time or money to do it but it has to be done right. Then and only then can you take a direct hit and be unscathed. I had many hits on commercial broadcast sites and never went off the air except for a couple seconds when the SWR over limit circuit tripped during the strike. The transmitter read the high voltage as a high SWR.
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i'm sure there's more than a couple of golfers would testify to surviving lightning strikes too, some of whom have survived multiple strikes.
 
further f bombs dropped as you pick shards of mason jar out of your hide!
Zman said:
I always put my coax to the radios to ground threw the coax switch or just put the end in a mason jar and say fuck it... Nothing survives a direct hit though!
Click to expand...
 
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kc8adu said:
further f bombs dropped as you pick shards of mason jar out of your hide!
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Indeed. Lightning has already jumped up to a mile or more through air at that point. A few millimeters of glass is not going to contain a few gigawatts present at the end of the cable. I refer to these mason jar lightning stops simply as glass fragmentation grenades. Besides who says the energy is not going to blow out the side of the cable where it rests against the gear,desk,wall, etc. before it even sees the jar?
 
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Captain Kilowatt said:
Besides who says the energy is not going to blow out the side of the cable where it rests against the gear,desk,wall, etc. before it even sees the jar?
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that's if it doesn't blast its way straight through the concrete looking for the shortest path to ground, with power like that as your adversary, a glass jar as a deterrent certainly sums up the "fuck it" approach,:LOL::LOL:
 
Here in OKC we deal with several popcorn storms throughout the season. Personally I think an operator is pushing his luck by having his equipment hooked up during a storm let alone talking on it. All my equipment is bonded and grounded. But a direct strike could take out everything in the house.
When we have storms in the forecast I disconnect everything. Although I've been away when one of those freak storms pop up, I've been lucky so far.
Don't use your system during a lightning storm! Your equipment might be the least of your worries!
 
IRock817 said:
Here in OKC we deal with several popcorn storms throughout the season. Personally I think an operator is pushing his luck by having his equipment hooked up during a storm let alone talking on it. All my equipment is bonded and grounded. But a direct strike could take out everything in the house.
When we have storms in the forecast I disconnect everything. Although I've been away when one of those freak storms pop up, I've been lucky so far.
Don't use your system during a lightning storm! Your equipment might be the least of your worries!
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Yeah I hear ya haha..just replaced the driver and all is well...I guess I'll make sure this radio is not connected during a storm.
 
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IRock817 said:
Here in OKC we deal with several popcorn storms throughout the season. Personally I think an operator is pushing his luck by having his equipment hooked up during a storm let alone talking on it. All my equipment is bonded and grounded. But a direct strike could take out everything in the house.
When we have storms in the forecast I disconnect everything. Although I've been away when one of those freak storms pop up, I've been lucky so far.
Don't use your system during a lightning storm! Your equipment might be the least of your worries!
Click to expand...


I agree. Why tempt fate. my point is and was that it is perfectly possible to take a direct hit and suffer no damage if things are grounded,bonded PROPERLY. The last thing I want in my hand during a lightning storm is the tail end of a lightning rod.
 
Captain Kilowatt said:
I agree. Why tempt fate. my point is and was that it is perfectly possible to take a direct hit and suffer no damage if things are grounded,bonded PROPERLY. The last thing I want in my hand during a lightning storm is the tail end of a lightning rod.
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It worked for Ben Franklin...:tongue:

I can almost hear the BBC and their cultured voice tones talking about the lightning taking the shortest "path" to ground, and pronouncing the word so that it a...l...m...o...s...t sounds like "...the shortest Garth...".

But you could become, just for a tiny moment, Captain Gigawatt! {Cry_river}
 

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