{"id":27835,"date":"2018-09-16T18:50:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T22:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wadesarver.com\/Podcast\/?p=27835"},"modified":"2018-09-16T18:50:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T22:50:50","slug":"did-you-get-caught-in-the-power-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wadesarver.com\/Podcast\/2018\/09\/did-you-get-caught-in-the-power-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"Did you get caught in the power struggle?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"COP<\/a><\/h1>\n

No, it\u2019s not a question about political power, I mean with your equipment power. With all of the deployments going on, grounding and surge suppression are vital to successful deployments. This is more about the instability of the electronic and electrical systems than just weather.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it, surges suck! I am talking about power surges here. They cause so many problems from total site failure to ongoing troubleshooting of issues that cause performance issues endlessly at a site or even in a data room. Unstable power can be a major problem anywhere in the world!<\/p>\n

For a list of products to support Wade4Wireless, click here!<\/a><\/h2>\n

When we plan deployments, we often just assume that the power and grounding at the site will be OK. When I did data room design, it was one of the first things we would plan, the UPS and surge protection along with proper grounding. This was the first thing that most customers hated because they thought we were trying to get more money out of them. While power and surge suppression cost more, it\u2019s often worth the investment in the long run. I couldn\u2019t convince everyone\u00a0that when they were planning their first large data room. Even at tower sites, they rely on the DC power supply to save them. They don\u2019t worry about power until they have intermittent problems which they can\u2019t explain. After hundreds of hours of troubleshooting and changing equipment, they may figure it out. Then it becomes a priority. It could be the grounding or the power. They often blame the design, when in fact, they were trying to take shortcuts.\"Small<\/a><\/p>\n

Lightning is still the enemy, but not the only enemy. That\u2019s why companies spend so much money on surge protection. The electric in an area could be unstable, and that could cause problems or lightning could strike, literally strike a site. If lightning strikes, then you could have issues for months because the electrical system or electronics could be weakened and fail over time. Lightning can cause issues for months to come.<\/p>\n

Unstable power is another issue that is all too common at remote tower sites or even sites in the cities. It causes problems that may come and go. Very intermittent. You may have to monitor the power to see what\u2019s really happening. Unstable electric is still an issue. No matter where you are in the world.<\/p>\n

Then there are the other problems we often overlook like a car hits a power pole and a surge or outage happens. Lines go down in a storm, overuse of power, like on a hot day with millions of air conditioners running, cause outages than a surge when everything is repaired.\"official<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in 2016, I interview Jim Grasty of Alltec, (link below), and he talked about the surge problems of the tower sites. He also mentions that a lot of his work is in the data room, not just at tower sites. He thinks that companies suffer from unstable power more often than they realize. Unfortunately, they don\u2019t l see it until something dies or it\u2019s been causing problems for a long time. They are still an issue today.<\/p>\n

The problem with a small surge or unstable electric is more than a simple outage. Large surges take the site down, and you repair it. Sure, downtime looks bad on your KPI report, but it\u2019s obvious. \u00a0The real problem is that it causes in the equipment to act strangely in a way that you can\u2019t track. The router could drop packets, the server could lose data or could be rebooting for no apparent reason. Stable power is critical in all work environments. I have seen anomalies in radios due to unstable power or surging power. Issues like this are often not looked at right away. You just assume that if it\u2019s powered up and working that it has power. It\u2019s got power, what more do you need? You need stability!\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s like the grounding issues; they also cause really strange problems. These issues take weeks to troubleshoot which drains resources, time, and money. These intermittent problems could be anything; they could be data, power, software, or anything. So often we never look at power until we get a glaring alarm about unstable power. Then we realize that it was the issue all along.<\/p>\n

Even when a site dies due to a surge, how many times does it need to happen before you take it seriously? How many repairs and replacements will you do before you actually look for the root cause? Is it lightning? By the way, lightning does strike twice in the same spot, anyone who worked on a tower that got struck several times knows this to be true. Some are more susceptible than others. Many companies have moved the site just to avoid lightning strike problems. I\u2019ve done it! Lighting is a real issue. Unstable power and poor grounding cause strange issues.\"Tower<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

What can you do to stop this? Make your power stable. Some do this with a UPS, some monitor the power for stability, and others install surge protectors. This is why many tower sites rely on DC power and batteries to run the equipment. DC can easily be monitored for problems. It\u2019s generally stable and will work with unstable power.<\/p>\n

Above I pointed out what you should look for, but it\u2019s hard to tell all the same. It will pay to monitor power in some way if you want to invest in power monitoring equipment.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are some ideas to avoid power problems:<\/p>\n