The FM Transmitter station of Doordarshan, Kodapanakunnu, which is used for transmitting signals of private FM radio stations such as Club FM, Radi Mirchi, Red FM etc., was hit by lightning. The incident took place around 6:00 pm on 29/03/15. Due to this the transmission was stopped and they had to repair the transmitter to bring before the radio stations could start broadcasting again. Engineers from LARC visited the site and investigated the causes and suggested remedies. They found that the lightning bolt hit the antenna tower and the electric current went through to the radio frequency switching unit damaging the copper conductors which carry the radio waves. This happened as the joints of the copper conductors were not proper creating a spark over damaging the copper conductor. If the joints had been properly made, this wouldn’t have been happened. The lightning accident occurred in spite of them having installed a lightning protection system. As per lightning protection standards, one of the important things to be taken care of is the proper bonding between the conductors. Here the failure was a result of improper bonding between conductors. They should consider themselves lucky not to have faced this accident earlier. This is an example of how an improperly done lightning protection system can lead to severe accidents. Some of the damaged equipment can be seen below:
Lightning India 