power failure monitoring at tower site

[speedway_navigator]

What do you guys use to let you know shore power went away?

I got a call yesterday from our county radio tech after he went to a site and found our tornado warning siren system and 2 other repeaters were down.
He called the Motorola comm shop to see if they knew, their tech texted some photos of the last time he was there and I was in one so I got the call.

I offered to autograph the photo but for some reason Cameron turned me down, millennials have little respect for us old folks.

I got on the FCC's ASR site after finding out my bookmark was bad and got with Crown castle.
The NOC (if there were 2 next to each other the "what knockers!" line from Young Frankenstein would be appropriate)
guy called back a few minutes later and said the electric meter is in our county's name, even gave me the meter number from a photo they have on file.

Since it looks like this is self inflicted I'd like to give our building manager a way to monitor for all critical sites.

 

[kf8yk]

We monitor the automatic transfer switches via Modbus. Voltage and current for both legs of the commercial power service are ATS Modbus registers reported to the network management system.

A Zabbix NMS monitors & logs all the Modbus data and sends alerts when anything is abnormal.

 

[mmckenna]

My -48volt and inverter systems monitor for me and will alert us. It can do that by sending an e-mail to our group, and it'll trigger an alarm input on our PBX for those sites.

I've been using DPS Telecom site monitoring equipment to give me room temperature and a sensor that lets me know if there's water on the floor. I have a few sites without suitable DC power plants, and I use an external module to monitor AC power and feed that into the DPS Telelcom box.

 

[davidgcet]

i second the DPS tempdefender line, we use them at a lot of fiber huts. nice units, easy to set up and monitor plenty of analog and digital inputs as well as give you actual room temp. they have a built in sensor and a separate plug in one so you can put it in a second area to get a more accurate read.

 

[lenk911]

We monitor the automatic transfer switches via Modbus.

Modbus is a good system but I have found less and less people who know the program. About 8 years ago, on my new installations switched to SNMP which is part of the TCP/IP architecture. Get great cooperation out of the I-T people because it is part of their world. Besides all legs of the power, monitor the generator, door entry, smoke, hazard lights, water on floor even the gas level in the propane tank. Difference with SNMP and Modbus is you need an internet circuit to the site. All of my new sites have at least a microwave connection and many have fiber.

 

[mikewazowski]

We use Asentria SiteBoss products: SiteBoss | Telecom Site Automation Device | Asentria

 

[mmckenna]

We use Asentria SiteBoss products: SiteBoss | Telecom Site Automation Device | Asentria

I've used some of the Asentria products, and they've been good. Never really put the site monitoring functions to full use, though.

 

[kb4mdz]

I've put in some Davicom DV200 panels in at muni radio sites, and helped with some other sites. Good stuff, nice, flexible and powerful.

 

[davidgcet]

We use Asentria SiteBoss products: SiteBoss | Telecom Site Automation Device | Asentria

we started using those in the last year. i have not personally installed one but have logged in to a couple remotely. seem to be pretty solid units too.

 

[mikewazowski]

We were using Optima Telecom units up until recently but started to run out of ethernet ports necessitating adding an ethernet hub. The SiteBoss units can be expanded with additional ports easily.

The other thing we liked is the SiteBoss' capability of interfacing with other equipment to pull key values and display them on a status page. One page can show you power plant values, temperature values, tower light values, etc.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Thanks guys, I will pass this to our county facility manager.

He and 2 other county workers met me at the site today, no power coming to our meter.
We found out later on Sprint had been paying the power bill, when they pulled out they must have told Duke energy they were done.
Duke said the disconnect order was done on Nov 18, I suspect it took a while to get processed or maybe it did not and when the bill never got paid for last month they shut it off..

The generator looks to have turned on and then ran out of fuel.

 

[FKimble]

There are better ways to run a generator test!

Frank

 

[freddaniel]

For those of you that like to roll-your-own and are handy, I use products made by www.ControlByWeb.com that have both digital and analog inputs. These can report by email using an Ethernet connection and also host a simple webpage, with all of the necessary site data. Some models have cellular modems built in. Most units have a maximum analog input of 10 V, so we use AC voltage and current transducers from www.crmagnetics.com like the CR4411 and CR4811. They also have DC current and voltage models, but resistor networks usually work just as well. Everything works at 24VDC and a small 6 Ah LifePO4 rechargeable battery works fine, charged by a Meanwell DRC-40B.
If the site has an existing 12VDC system, then I use a DC-DC converter like the Meanwell DDR-15G-24 to power the transducers.
Everything is DIN-rail mounting, so it is easy to assemble in a sealed enclosure with a clear plastic cover. See examples of real websites below. You can define the names of the inputs and set the scale multipliers. I have used many of these for more than 15 years without a crash or failure at large shared communications sites.

 

[Firebuff880]

You might consider Room Alert from Avtech AVTECH - Monitor Temperature and Environment Conditions with Room Alert
Network Technologies Monitor Environment Server Data center Network temperature sensor

 

[Firebuff880]

Add this relay solution to the list of options --
Ethernet Web-Controlled Relay—Control Anything From Anywhere

 

[ffexpCP]

Do you have a security system? Add it there if it doesn't automatically trip a trouble upon AC loss. I've also used UPS units to notify me.

You didn't mention the type of system at the site. I know some analog base / repeater stuff can sound a alarm tone on AC loss if you have a battery backup attached.

And maybe upgrade the siren to 2-way for telemetry like ac and battery status, assuming its not a dinosaur.

But I'm a millennial, so don't listen to me.

 

[speedway_navigator]

there are 3 repeaters at the site, a GTR8000, NXR-710 and a TKR740. There is a UPS but it was off for some reason, the county tech turned it on. No one seems to know who is responsible for the GTR.
Folks are looking for purchase records, hope to have an answer soon.

There might have been an alarm system on the door, mag switch and wiring are there but it's not connected.