Lightning protection for WLAN links

More and more wireless LAN links are being installed between the transmitter and studio.  Often these links are used for network extension, remote control, site security, VOIP telephony, and sometimes even as a main STL.  These systems come in several flavors:

  • Moseley LAN link or similar system.  Operates on unlicensed 920 MHz (902-928 MHz) band.  Advantages: can use existing 900 MHz STL antennas, can work reliably over longer distances, transmitter, and receiver located indoors.  Disadvantages: slow, expensive
  • ADTRAN TRACER or similar system with indoor transceivers and coax-fed antenna systems.  Operates on unlicensed or licensed WLAN frequencies.  Advantages: fast, transmitter and receiver located indoors, can be configured for Ethernet or T-1/E-1 ports.  Disadvantages; expensive
  • Ubiquiti Nano bridge or similar system where the transceiver is located in the antenna, the system is connected via category 5/6 cable with POE.  Operates on unlicensed or licensed WLAN frequencies.  Advantages; fast, relatively inexpensive.  Disadvantages; equipment located on the tower, difficult to transition base insulator of series fed AM tower.
  • Ubiquiti Rocket or similar system where the antenna and transceiver are separate, but the transceiver is often located on the tower behind the antenna and fed with category 5/6 cable with POE.  Operates on unlicensed and licensed WLAN frequencies.

For the first two categories of WLAN equipment, standard lightning protection measures are usually adequate:

  • Good common point ground techniques
  • Ground the coaxial cable shield at the tower base and at the entrance to the building
  • Appropriate coaxial-type transmission line surge suppressors
  • Ferrite toroids on ethernet and power connections

For the second two types of WLAN equipment, special attention is needed with the ethernet cable that goes between the tower and POE injector or switch.  Shielded, UV-resistant cable is a requirement.  On an AM tower, the shielded cable must also be run inside a metal conduit.  Due to the skin effect, the metal conduit will keep most of the RF away from the ethernet cable.  Crossing a base insulator of a series excited tower presents a special problem.

The best way to get across the base insulator of a series excited tower is to use fiber.  This precludes the use of POE which means that AC power will be needed up on the tower to power the radio and fiber converter.  This may not be a huge problem if the tower is lit and the incandescent lighting system can be upgraded to LEDs.  A small NEMA 4 enclosure can house the fiber converter and POE injector to run the WLAN radio.  Some shorter AM towers are no longer lit.

Another possible method would be to fabricate an RF choke out of copper tubing.  This is the same idea as a tower lighting choke or a sample system that uses tower-mounted loops.  I would not recommend this for power levels over 10 KW or on towers that are over 160 electrical degrees tall.  Basically, some 3/8 or 1/2-inch copper tubing can be wound into a coil through which a shielded ethernet cable can be run.  Twenty to twenty-five turns, 12 inches in diameter will work for the upper part of the band.  For the lower part, the coil diameter should be 24 inches.

In all cases where CAT 5 or 6 cable is used on a tower, it must be shielded and the properly shielded connectors must be used.  In addition, whatever is injecting power into the cable, ether POE injector or POE switch must be very well grounded.  The connector on the shielded Cat5 or 6 cable must be properly applied to ensure the shield is grounded. 

In addition to that, some type of surge suppressor at the base of the tower is also needed. Tramstector makes several products to protect low voltage data circuits.

Transtector APLU 1101 series dataline protector
Transtector APLU 1101 series data line protector

These units are very well made and designed to mount to a tower leg. They come with clamps and ground conductor designed to bolt to a standard copper ground buss bar.

Transtector APLU 1101 series dataline protector
Transtector APLU 1101 series data line protector

There are various models designed to pass POE or even 90 VDC ring voltage.

Transtector APLU 1101 series dataline protector
Transtector APLU 1101 series data line protector

This model is for POE. The circuit seems to consist mostly of TVS diodes clamping the various data conductors.

As more and more of these systems are installed and become a part of critical infrastructure, more thought needs to be given to lightning protection, redundancy and disaster recovery in the event of equipment failure.

Trends in Terrestrial Broadcasting, II

Things seem to be relatively quiet these days, with no earth-shattering developments, no big news stories, etc.  My workload consists of mostly driving to one location and cleaning things up, then driving to another location and cleaning more things up.  Nothing really new to write about.  However, industry-wide, there have been some developments of note:

  1. More AM HD radio only testing out in Seattle.  We hear that these tests are phenomenal but have yet to see any data.  The HD Radio proponents keep pushing for an all-digital transition.  To that I say good, let those stations (AM and FM) that want to transition to all digital do so, provided they conform to the analog channel bandwidths and do not cause interference to analog stations.  It should also be an either/or decision: Either transmit in all digital format or revert to analog only format, with no more interference causing hybrid analog-digital.
  2. BMW depreciates AM radio in some models.  It seems the all-electric car generates too much electric noise to facilitate AM reception.  My question; are these mobile noise generators going to cause reception problems for other vehicles too?  What if I want to hear the traffic on 880 or 1010 and one of these things roles by?  There are larger implications here and the FCC should be concerned with this.
  3. General Motors pauses the HD Radio uptake in some models.  No real reasons were given, but more emphasis on LTE in the dashboard is noted.  We are reassured by iBquity that this trend is only temporary.
  4. Anxiously awaiting this year’s engineering salary survey.  For science, of course.  Here is last year’s survey.
  5. Clear Channel is no more!  They have gone out of business and a new company, iHeart Media, has taken over.  Things will be much better now, I can feel it.
  6. John Anderson finds a chilly reception at the last NAB confab: An Unwelcome Guest at the NAB radio show. This is not surprising but kind of sad. John has been a reasonable critic of IBOC and wrote a book titled: Radio’s Digital Dilemma.
  7. Not too much going on with the AM revitalization.  Tom King of Kintronics notes that the fault is in our receivers.
  8. Government shortwave broadcasters continue to sign off permanently.  Radio Exterior de Espana ceases operations.
  9. European long wave and medium wave stations are also throwing the big switch; Atlantic 252 (long wave), as well as German long wave stations on 153, 177,  and 207 KHz, medium wave stations 549, 756, 1269, and 1422 KHz also are signing off.  Those 9 KHz channel spacings look strange don’t they.  What fate awaits US AM radio stations?
  10. I am reading Glenn Greenwald’s book, No Place to Hide.  I knew this, you should know it too.

WVWA Nine Double Oh Radio

It seems branding and programming issues are a long-running problem for radio stations. This is a copy of something that was made at WALL in 1974.  It has been circulated extensively in the NY metro market, but perhaps some of you from other areas or countries have not heard of it yet. There is no WVWA 900 in Pound Ridge, it is a fictitious station:

What is hilarious is that the same exact this is still going on forty years later. How many times have programming consultants, program directors, and corporate programming gurus sat around and said “What we really need is a catchy name, like The Buzz or something.” I don’t know how many times I have heard “The X” or “The Eagle” or “fill in stupid name here.” Do the listeners really think “Oh wow, they changed their name, I will listen to this station now!” No, not likely.

The funniest part is; “After more than 100 hours of extensive research… (the programming consultant) developed, refined, molded, polished, honed, shaped and pulled out of left field a revolutions new formatic programing concept…”  Play music, say nothing, and scream “NINE!” between each song.

Designing an ATU

Most ordinary field engineers will not need to design an ATU in the course of their normal duties. However, knowing the theory behind it can be very helpful when troubleshooting problems.  Also, fewer and fewer people understand RF these days, especially when it comes to AM.  Knowing a little bit can be an advantage.

We were working on an AM tower recently when several discrepancies were noted in the ATU:

WFAS ATU, 1230 KHz
WFAS ATU, 1230 KHz, 1 KW, N-DA

This was connected to a 202° tower. There were several complaints about seasonal shifts and narrow bandwidth. The VSWR meter would deflect slightly on high-frequency audio peaks, always a bad sign.  A little bit of backstory is in order.  WFAS signed on in 1930 using a four-legged self-supporting tower.  This tower was used until about 1986, when it was replaced with a series excited, guyed tower.  The ATU in use was initially designed for the replacement tower, which likely had a good bit of capacitive reactance.  I am speculating on that, as I cannot find the original paperwork for the replacement tower project.  At some point, somebody decided to ground the tower and put a skirt on it, likely to facilitate tower leasing.  The skirt was installed, but the ATU was never properly reconfigured for the high inductive reactance from the skirted tower.  The truth is, the Collins 820-D2 or Gates BC-1G tube-type transmitters probably didn’t care.  They were probably like; bad load, meh, WHATEVER!  Although the audio quality likely suffered.  That all changed when Broadcast Electronics AM1A was installed.  To fix the bad load problem, a BE 1 KW tuning unit was installed next to the transmitter.

Technically, there are several problems with the above circuit, starting with the capacitor on the wrong side of the base current meter.  This capacitor was installed outside of the ATU between the tower and ATU output.  Was the base current meter really measuring the base current?  I don’t know, maybe? The shunt leg was lifted but both of the inductors of the former T network were left in the circuit.

We reconnected the shunt leg and moved the capacitor inside the ATU and to the correct side of the base current meter.   After several hours of tuning and fooling around with it, the ATU is still narrow-banded, although now at least the input is 50Ω j0. I believe the current design has too much series inductance to be effective.

Thus, a redesign is needed.  I think, because of the inductive reactance of a skirted tower, a phase advance T network will lead to best bandwidth performance.  The basic design for a +90-degree phase advance looks like this:

WFAS -90 lagging ATU
WFAS +90 phase advance ATU, 1230 KHz, 1 KW, N-DA

To calculate the component values for the ATU, some basic arithmetic is required.  The impedance value for each leg in a +/- 90 degree T network can be calculated with the following formula:

Z = √(inputZ × outputZ)

Where Z = impedance per leg
Input Z = the ATU input impedance, 50Ω
Output Z = the antenna resistance, 58Ω

Thus:  Z =√ (50Ω × 58Ω)

Z = 53.85Ω

Formula for Capacitance: C = 1/(2Π × freq × XC)

Thus for the input leg: C = 1/(6.28 × 1.23MHz × 53.85Ω)

C (input)  = 0.0024 μF

Formula for Inductance:  L = XL/(2Π × freq)

Thus for the shut leg: L = 53.85Ω /(6.28 × 1.23 MHz)

L (shunt) = 6.97 μH

For the output leg, we must also consider the inductive reactance from the tower which needs to be cancelled out with capacitance.  Thus, the output capacitor needs to have a value of 53.85Ω + 580Ω = 633.85Ω

Thus for the output leg: C = 1/(6.28 × 1.23MHz × 633.85Ω)

C (output)  = 0.000204 μF

The amazing thing is, all of these components are available in the current ATU, they just needed to be rearranged.  The exception is the vacuum variable capacitor, which I salvaged from an MW-5 transmitter many years ago.  I donated that to the project, as I am tired of looking at it in my basement.  The reason for the vacuum variable capacitor will become evident in a moment.  The input capacitor will be slightly over value, which will require the inductor to tune out the excess capacitance.  A good design rule is to use minimum inductance to adjust the value of a fixed capacitor, thus the capacitor should be not more than 130% of the required value.

About the Vacuum variable output capacitor; in the existing ATU had a 0.0002 μF capacitor already.  With a +90° phase shift, this capacitor is likely adequate for the job.  The vacuum variable may be pressed into service if something other than a +90° phase shift is needed for optimum bandwidth.  That will be the topic of my next post.

Final consideration is the current and voltage ratings of the component.  As this is a re-build using existing components, chances are that they already meet the requirements.  On a new build or for replacing parts, one must consider the carrier power and modulation as well as any asymmetrical component to the modulation index.  For current and voltage each, the value is multiplied by 1.25 and then added to itself.  For a 1,000 watt carrier the input voltage on a 50 ohm line will be approximately 525 volts at 10 amps with 125% modulation.  A good design calls for a safety factor of two, thus the minimum rating for component in this ATU should be 1050 volts at 20 amps, rounded up to the next standard rating.   The capacitor on the output leg should be extra beefy to handle any lightning related surges.

The current rating for a capacitor is usually specified at 1 MHz.  To convert to the carrier frequency, the rating needs to be adjusted using the following equation:

IO = IR√ FO

Where:
IO: current rating on the operating frequency
IR: current rating at 1 MHz (given)
FO: operating frequency in MHz

The vacuum variable output capacitor is rated for 15,000 volts, 42 amps.  Adjusted for frequency, that changes to 46 amps.  The calculated base current is 4.18 amps carrier, 9.41 amps peak modulation.  Thus, the capacitor on hand is more than adequate for the application.