On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 0:15:46 -0600, tommyknocker wrote
(in message ):

As a result of recent events, I have two surge protectors that no longer
function without putting out loud noises on HF. I found that the $5
surge protector that my Yaesu was plugged in to was making a loud
whistling noise which was covered up by the louder warbling noise being
made by the Belkin I had my computer plugged into. So I decided to break
them open to see what was inside. The easiest was Old El Cheapo, held
together with screws. Inside was a length of wire, a switch and ONE disc
capacitor wired into six plugs. IMO that's little better than a plain
old power strip. The Belkin had no screws, so it took a little longer to
crack. The results: a switch, two LEDs ("protected" and "grounded"), an
inductor coil, a couple resistors and transistors, and about 9 or 10
disc capacitors in series. In October 2002 the Belkin cost me $40. I'm
hard pressed to say that it was money well spent, if all that's in there
are some capacitors and resistors. Question: are surge protectors worth
it if all they are is just a bunch of capacitors?


I know that my $40
surge protector apparently rolled over and died when hit with a real
surge.


Durn betcha!

It did exactly as it should have and blew out the (I'm reasonably sure)
capacitors (RadioShack used to carry them, btw)).

That's why they are "cheap" - as I said earlier - they self-destruct rather
than your computers or radio gear self-destructing.

Stinger mentioned Standby Power Supplies. I have a 500 watt APC SPS that was
pretty decently priced and my wife has one of the itsy-bitsy SPS Power Strips
(APC Office 280) and I've seen these "PowerSupply in a Power Strip" /very/
cheap lately - 40U$-55U$.

My wife and I used to run to the front door when the Back-Up 500 signaled
with a short beep; usually we could get to the front porch to hear the
transformer self-destruct.

Sometimes we were the ones with a power outage and the two SPS's allowed us
to "shut down gracefully". Other times we just knew that some residents not
too far away had just lost their power.




Gray Shockley
-------------------------------------------------
They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton,
they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they
also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan