Ham Radio - An Alpha Delta lightning arrester with an intermittent short.
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
- Tracked down an intermittent short and you'd be surprised by what I found inside.
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The actual spark gap is inside the gas discharge insert.
It may have been residual swarf from a milling operation. I had an adapter that had large pieces of swarf shorting the connection. In my case it was easy to see. It was good that you found and fixed this issue. Have a good off grid experience.
Exactly
I thought it looked like "junk left over from cutting threads" but I didn't know there was a special word for it. So, thank you. "Swarf." Quite succinct.
Looks like thread shavings or other machining shavings.
Murphy at work.
Totally agree thread shavings
We use a brand called polyphaser. at least two and sometimes 3 at each repeater of 36 sites. We've not had this happen .
Thanks for all your videos. Merry Christmas
Thats not wire, it is left over from the milling operation. I purchased 10 of these for my Tower setup and had 2 of them that had the same issue, not sure if it was just contamination from the milling process or it was from the threads from the gas tube insert? In any case great video and thanks for taking the time to post. I did the same thing you did and it was an easy fix...
I pinned your comment. It's good to see that someone else observed the same issue.
Thank you for the surgery video. Glad you shared it... I have a new polyphaser that I need to inspect, that is sitting outdoors in an enclosure; that I left to sort out later. Hmmm. 73
You are doing a great job keep on keeping on Kevin. Can't wait for your beach videos.
Great catch! Thank you for sharing.
Glad I found this vid (useful!). I've had two random shorts on my feedline, and now I know what to check. The first short was JUST before a contest. Luckily, conditions were lousy the first night. Anyway, the material cost to make these is low, and the cost is not low. This is unacceptable manufacturing standard for an American product, and the lack of QA/QC is disconcerting. My SWR was through the roof, and then I realised it was obviously a short when looking at the Z, R, X display on the RigExpert. The resistance was about 1 ohm. Well, that's a short. Appreciate the video.
Another interesting vidoe Kevin, thank you. Great detective work ! My money would also be on it being swarf from the machining process. Either way another example of poor quality products in our hobby. Really appriciate the time & effort you put in to producing your content 👍
Considering the high cost, lowzy quality control in the shop. And I doubt they'd pay for rig repairs. I don't trust that kind of lightening arrestor anyhow. A good heavy switch to ground the antenna is better.
I have have seen that the simplest things can ruin your day many times, good find Keven. 73
I got a new high voltage vacuum gauge power supply/controller. A real beauty.
I struggled for few weeks (no schematics) to get the system working. I looked at my notes, the hookups were correct.
I checked voltages; they were correct. Then I powered the system down, disconnected one lead and reconnected that lead.
When I powered up the system it worked, partly. I jiggled the other connectors and the system worked. I put the cables out of sight, and the system worked fine for years afterwards. No problems.
Cheap poorly fabricated connectors! N0QFT
Yo Kevin!:
Great "filler in" video. Glad Al was able to get a hold of you before leaving. And wise of him to not transmit under those conditions! Great of you to additionally assist him as well. And as far as taking video shots, all in a day learning! Your gonna be an expert soon!
Have a good time on your venture!
73!
De seeker / Jeff WA7LFP
Yes like others have stated that looks like shaving from when they cut the threads for the gas tube. I use to use gas discharge arresters when I owned a commercial tower site and ; how lucky I was ! not to run into that. Ha have a great RV trip.73 Leo
I'm sure you know that the Alph Delta is not really a lightning arrester, but a surge protector. It should be mounted on the station ground rod just before it enters the house not on the tower.
I went Diamond for lightning arresters. Not sure if they're any better, but I find Diamond's products generally well-made. I do have Alpha-Delta DXLB antenna that has been up for decades with no problems.
Thread cuttings?
Thank you for posting I will meter out the lighting arrestors I have on order before I put them in place just goes to show don’t trust everything until you have tested first for safety and functionality.
Blow them out with compressed air also, just in case there's some debris in there.
@@loughkb thanks Kevin will do that when I get them
Just wanted to let you know that I had a problem with the same model of arrestor. All of a sudden, a folded dipole that worked great would all of a sudden show the same high SWR on all bands. I replaced the arrestor with a spare and the problem went away. When I tried to recreate the problem with the original arrestor, it would not fail so I plan on looking very closely in mine to look for the possible short. Thanks for posting the video. WA3ERQ
Thanks for the video Kevin, have a good time away camping. Dave G4POT 73's
As previously stated, those aren't wires. They're swarf from the when the holes were milled or the screw holes tapped in the body of the arrester.
It sounds like fun to be able o pick up stakes and go to the beach. Perhaps your decision o use an RV was a good one. Have fun.
Have fun at the beach. Sure beats the snow and cold of Indiana. N6NRO
Is that screw in part just a solid brass piece or does it have gas tube arrestor pellet that fits in it. Gas tube arrestors are a very interesting subject to study. For a 100 watt radio the arrestor flash over voltage is much lower than say a tube for a 1.5kw amp has a much higher flash over voltage rating. At one point in time I spent a lot of time looking over little Fuse'es charts and info and it's exhausting. One fellow ham had a gas tube with too low of a rating for his amp. Whenever his voice peaks went too high it went high SWR and tripped his amp off. On my Alpha Delta the pellet rests on the middle post, just don't over tighten it. I also discovered that one expensive arrestor I had wouldn't work on HF only VHF/UHF It shot the SWR through the roof on my HF rig.. Come to find out lightning has a frequency that a special cutoff filter inside blocked. Any way I found out there is a whole stack of stuff on them. That's crazy to have wire bits in there. That almost seems like sabotage to me.
Looks like thread residue. Hmmm...
Good story.
Thanks for your video. I need reminders. N0QFT
Have fun and show us some of the beach next time.
I'll be doing a review video of the camping spot. I shot a bit of it for you.
Good catch on the short. ....What beach park are you camped? I live in Texas and try to get to the coast every couple of years. Thanks
I'll mention the location when I'm ready to leave it. I have a few trolls I would like to avoid them knowing where I am
I was camped at Magnolia Beach. I'll do a full review video of the camping spot.
Wow thank you for showing the silly things the can happen.
I think I might have the same problem, because my radio has major problem something went wrong in my radio I cannot transmit simplex, radio does not put out power or watts. Power supply kept dropping to 7.1amps, did not have this problem until, I connected the alpha delta protector like the one in your video. Something burned up my radio.
Sounds like you blew the finals. You would probably have noticed the very high SWR on your meter if you have one in line. An SWR/Power meter in line before the antenna is the best way to keep an eye on the health of your antenna system.
Interesting.
I wonder if they used 100% tin solder in it? That might have caused tin whiskers to grow. Some attempts to make gear without lead have their own problems. The wires looked silvery...could you see any copper in them?
Actually, I wonder if they were from milling or drilling. Maybe when the hole was tapped for threads. Sometimes those processes can produce wire-like shavings of metal.
@@loughkb yeah, I suppose they could have been a chip from a tap that didn't get properly cleaned off. It's hard to gauge scale in the picture. Maybe if you put a banana in there for scale...? hi hi
@@loughkb Yes, it looked like swarf to me.
I was thinking tin whiskers before Kevin pulled out the swarf.
Alpha Delta is too high priced for me considering what you're getting. Sounds like they need to improve their QC proceedures.
Yo!!!
Yippee Yi ayyy.
Would never have happened if it were made in China 😀
Should have never happened with proper manufacturing and inspection.