Stormin’s Work Bench    (Cross Strikes resolutions for Optilator & Optelator II)       5/26/04

 

The Optilator & Optelator II is a well known product in the AM/ FM broadcast, Dairy Farming and the Power Utility industry.

The rest of the world is not really exposed to this product.  It is a pricy product, but for good reason. The nature of it’s design is two separate PC boards that are miniature phone systems separated by fiber optics.  In the AM/FM industry this product became a salvation to Burk, Gentner, and Sine Systems.  The reasons are quite obvious.  In a 650 foot tower, a direct strike by lightning is an imminent blow out.   It is a matter of time before these communications equipment will expire.  The Optelator has become a requirement by most Chief Engineers to install this device to prevent even a direct strike that destroys these monitoring systems.  The purpose of the Optelator is to prevent a path way to ground by isolating the phone company phone line with 5” of fiber optics from the modems.  In this manner we eliminate a ground loop.   Something very rare happens sometimes in the AM/FM industry.  Because of the nature of the 100% hit ratio, plus direct impact by lightning, which constitutes extremely high risk, and also because of soil content and the lack of attention due by the phone company for improved grounding, a rare phenomenon occurs.   In 30 years of phone line protection, I have never seen or heard of cross strikes on phone lines.  In this industry, it is possible.  In the last 20 years selling the Optelator I have seen approx 1500 units that get damaged by this phenomenon, and all of them repairable.  Because of this, I have invented a specially designed surge suppression devices that does not need to be grounded (Telco-ISO2WDTB-RJ11-Optelator).  It is only designed to deal with cross strike problems.  You plug it in up-line from the Optelator, and it creates a bit of impedance on the line with enough protection designed for AC power, which forces the cross strike to occur inside this device, instead of doing it in the Optelator.  This device has heat sinks plus is heavily loaded with protection across the line in four stages plus an isolation transformer.  It does effect the operating voltage and current by Ma Bell but, the Optelator compensates that on the output.  If a cross strike occurs, we want it to do it in this device that can handle this rare problem.  Another answer to this problem, and I am not alone in saying this.  If you can only get the phone company to come out and properly ground their de-mark, plus apply chemical based ground rod system tied directly into your single point grounding system it will solve this problem, naturally I am dreaming.  The power utility industry has also had this problem, but their percentage has been next to nothing compared to the AM/FM broadcast industry.  For your information, the reason the utility uses the Optelator is to eliminate a 10,000 volt differential that does exist between their lift stations and the phone company de-mark box.   So just imagine how long it takes to fry a modem, forget the lightning issue.  The last thing is the Dairy Industry, mostly noise issues and phone lines dropped due to lack of power.        The Optelator is always on and cleans the line of noise by eliminating the grounding differential.

 Sincerely

 John E. Pecore E-Mail: john.pecore@storminprotection.com

President

Stormin Protection Products Inc.

727-823-6100

Stormin’s Work Bench        Sine Systems & Optelator corrective action                                5/26/04

 The Optelator II is a well known product in the AM/ FM broadcast industry.  But!

Optelator II will work with  Sine Equipment, but with a little effort on your part it will work.

90% of all modems the Optelator II will perform, but this year the popularity of the Sine Equipment develop a problem for us.   It is now resolved. I had two Engineers that called, one I could not help, but the 2nd Engineer took matters in his own hands.

 An Engineer Mr. Brian Hill,  from Back Yard Broadcasting in Pennsylvania discovered that it was not the Optelator being the problem, rather a reprogramming is requirement for ring sensitivity for the Sine Equipment.

      Example: RFC1 B unit:

      Access memory address 1014

      Enter value (10) then hit pound (#)

This changes the Factory Default of  (0) = 1.79 volts sensitivity to 4.66 volts sensitivity.

While I was on the phone with Brian, he proved to me it worked.  He dialed up the Sine Equipment and it made a connection on the first ring.

Brian’s Fear was, could that be a problem because any transit surges higher the 1.79 will get through.  My answer was quit simple.  That is impossible, because our link is fiber optics, and that means there is no possibility  or any  transits at all  can even get anything above 4.66 volts.

This concludes a happy ending and a new beginning to solve the equipment interface problems.  If you have any questions like this please contact me regarding the Optelator II.

Sincerely

John E. Pecore

President

Stormin Protection Products inc.

888-471-1038

Text Box: Work Bench Sine System

Solution for Sine Systems

Keep in mind, End of life for this product.

Phone: 727-823-6100 Toll Free: 888-471-1038 SIP Phone: 529-2299 Fax: 727-823-6044

Email: (&)Sip:jpecore@earthlink.net

To contact us:

We have some solutions, and interesting ideas regarding the Optelator.

 

Also, due to the fact that land lines for phones, are all but gone, so this is an end of product for the Optelator.