[FLWSS] Whole house Surge Protector available cheap! Why you need one

[John Logsdon]

To the people most likely to be affected by lightning!        

Lowes, (and probably others) is stocking a large surge suppressor that mounts in the house distribution panel. It has four wires, as described in the April, QST article (Sheff,L. W4QEJ. p 30 ff.). It mounts in a standard hole at the edge of the box. It is wired to ground, neutral and L1,L2, by using a double-breaker rated at 20 amps or better. I used my well double-breaker but I could have used the hot water or HVAC breakers. It was $84 in Inverness, FL. 

Inverness, EL88, is in the middle of the lightning kill-zone of North America. EL88 and EL98 have an average of 13 times the lightning cloud to ground strikes as anywhere else on the continent. My four acres has the tops of the live oak trees scarred from multiple hits as well as an F0 tornado that came through during the Hurricane season of 2005. My ground system, bonded to the power ground, includes the rebar in my foundation (code requirement on new houses), two well casings one hundred feet or deeper, maybe fifteen eight-foot standard ground rods and the bases of several short towers. I also have a twenty-five foot pole that sticks up next to the house above the roof and has the base bonded to the ground system. The coax coming into the ham shack barn is attached to a copper bar bonded to the ground system where it enters. I am thinking of buying a second suppressor and putting it in my ham shack sub-panel (100 amp underground service). 

Last week a wind gust toppled a dead sixty foot oak on the 7.2 kV line near my underground telephone service box across the street. The 7.2 kV line fell on top of the service box, started a fire inside the box, blew the telephone service card at the main office several miles away, took out the house lightning arrestor on the phone line and welded the phone line pair in use at my QTH for several feet. The computer modem and phones survived due to the arrestor taking the joules. The arrestor was bonded to my ground system.

I use a 5 GHz radio link for my ham shack computer dsl link and my shack telephone is on 2.4 GHz to avoid all the exposed wire. There are a bazillion square feet in Citrus County. The oak that fell on the power line dropped that wire on the one square foot that my telephone line is above ground. Go figure. If it had fallen on my underground power service  box a hundred feet away, I probably would have lost the house distribution panel and my barn sub-panel if not my whole house.  We were out when the incident took place. 

John the elder- CU at SVHFS, Orlando!  K2STO


 








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