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

[Bob Reite]

I've seen a strobe system advertised in which the electronics is on the 
ground, with minimal parts in the strobe head.  At least if those fail, 
you don't have the tower crew cost for repair of the electronics.

Fluker, Steve (CXR-Orlando) wrote:

> 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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