[SBE] High Intensity Tower Light (1000ft tower) Maintenancebudget

[Fluker, Steve (CXR-Orlando)]

Yes, the first generation of the Dialight LED beacons did have problems around the high RF areas.  My top beacon would shut off when the Antenna was hot, and if I dropped the carrier, the light would come right back on.  I'm using the 3rd generation now and they work fine.  As Paul Reynolds said, maintaining the strobes can be very expensive.  When I rebuilt a 1,500 foot tower, we painted it and used LED's.  Not looking forward to the cost of repainting down the line, but so far it's saving money with the LED lights.  I've also replaced the lighting on three other towers with LED's and so far have had good luck.  Two AM towers were outfitted with LED's about 4 years ago and to date we've had no maintenance costs on either tower.
 
Steve Fluker
Director of Engineering
Cox Radio, Orlandl

________________________________

From: sbe-bounces at sbe.org on behalf of R.V.Zeigler
Sent: Fri 2/19/2010 3:46 PM
To: sbe member discussion mail list
Subject: [SBE] High Intensity Tower Light (1000ft tower) Maintenancebudget



If I could inject something here. Dialight supplied the first set of
beacons for our 1000' FM stick with 3 Class C FM's on discreet antennas.
They were abysmal and our supplier changed them to another brand. One
level of beacons sits directly between bays 5 and 6 of the bottom
antenna. The replacements lasted 6 months before we had all sorts of
intermittent and strange problems. Dialight sent me 2 replacement
beacons, which we installed over a year ago and they are working
wonderfully. Moral of my story, if you decide to go LED beacons I would
not be afraid to put the new Dialight's with RF shielding anywhere on
the tower.
We spent close to $15K trying to get the replacement beacons to work and
were looking at almost $50K to retrofit to incandescent when Dialight
came to the rescue. From a financial standpoint, it may be very
reasonable to paint the tower and retrofit to LED's. The longer you have
the property, the more you save every month.
BTW, the intermittent beacons work fine sitting on the bench in the
engineering shop.
Rod

--
R. V. Zeigler, Dir. of Eng.
Nebraska Rural Radio Assn.
KRVN-KTIC-KNEB
rzeigler at krvn.com

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