On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:40:20 -0700, Bruce L. Bergman
wrote:

snip
Probably didn't do the waveguide and diplexer and transmitters and
receivers any favors either...

That's the time you just drop a dumpster at the door of the repeater
shack and shovel it all out to start fresh. Certain bits may have
survived unscathed, but it'll take way too long to find them and
certify that each and every function still works... Let the factory
service depot do that.

That was my old line of work, lightning damage was hard to
guess. Looking at the structure though, a water tower, I
wouldn't be surprised if the antenna was the worst of it.
They (antenna) are normally a DC connection to ground. That
absorbs a bunch of energy in itself. Fiberglass antennas
perform well RF wise but don't take lightning hits well.

Different tower sites had different tendencies. Some rarely
received lightning damage even though you knew they were hit
regularly. Others seemed to get beat-up every time a dark
cloud floated by. If the site was hardened, built to R56
standards damage was always pretty limited. I doubt if there
are too many cell sites anymore that aren't built to that
spec in lightning prone areas (shrug).

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email