Product Feature: Ladder Line Surge Protector Posted by Wayne KE8JFW

Since DX Engineering’s team of Elmers can’t be with you in person to discuss their lineup of new Amateur Radio products, OnAllBands will be featuring some of the latest gear you would have seen firsthand at 2020 Hamvention®. Remember, DX Engineering’s knowledgeable staff is only a phone call or email away when you want to talk everything Amateur Radio with an active operator who cares about the hobby as much as you do.

Today we’ll be highlighting DX Engineering’s Ladder Line Surge Protector (DXE-LLSP).

Like many innovations that come from DX Engineering, this product went into development based on the personal experiences of the company’s own Hams and feedback from customers—in this case, those who had experienced damage to stations with 300- and 450-ohm ladder line-fed antennas. In the old days, operators turned to spark plugs or arc gaps to shunt lightning impulses from balanced feeders to ground—an unreliable solution that came with the added problem of affecting the antenna’s tuning.

Enter DX Engineering’s Ladder Line Surge Protector, which comes ready to be placed in line with your balanced feedline antenna system. The DXE-LLSP is made with components similar to those used in coaxial protectors, but it uses much larger capacitors, resistors, and gas discharge tubes on each leg of the ladder line to offer dependable surge protection capabilities at high SWR. The components are rated to handle 5 kW. The DX Engineering Ladder Line Surge Protector:

• Works with 450-ohm or 300-ohm ladder line and 600-ohm open-wire feeder
• Handles well over legal limit RF power at the high SWR expected on balanced line
• Bleeds off the static charge that is collected on your antenna from wind-driven sand, rain, and snow
• Withstands multiple minor surges and shunts them to the ground
• Features a standard size NEMA enclosure with weep holes to drain buildup of internal moisture

As with any surge protector, there are no guarantees that direct lightning hits can prevent damage to your system.

The Ladder Line Surge Protector is the latest addition to DX Engineering’s full lineup of grounding equipment, including coaxial cable grounding brackets, surge arrestors, rotator control line protector, copper grounding bars, radio RF ground plane kits, flexible copper grounding straps, universal copper grounding clamps, antenna disconnect actuator, and more.

Also, check out ARRL’s Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur by OnAllBands blogger Ward Silver, N0AX—”Perfect Ham Radio literature,” according to customer reviews.