Over the years I’ve had a number of radios, both digital and analog. In that time I’ve had a number of damaged radios that were impacted due to (I assume) electrical storms in the vicinity of the QTH of the damaged gear. I have always used lightening arresters and so forth, and proper grounding, but there is a certain amount of energy that gets into the shack from nearby storms that are not producing any direct hits, but still do manage to produce a lot of ambient energy.
I’ve noticed that the old analog radios seem to stand up to the storm, so to speak, better than the digital ones (now this is anecdotal information that only involves four radios, so it could be insufficient for the making of any conclusions).
In the first case I had two radios hooked up to the antenna and rig switching network, with one being an analog (oldie from the seventies) radio, and one being a newer digital radio. The digital radio suffered a failure, while the analog radio (the oldie) did not. The second case was similar, with another older analog radio hooked up at the same time as a second digital radio. The result was also similar, as the analog radio sailed right through and the digital one suffered a failure.
If you think about it, the old analog transistors would seem to be hardier things than a fet or a logic chip. The MOS technology builds a capacitor into every device, which may not handle a lot of voltage. Often, they do not. Sure, some of the big MOSFET power transistors can take higher voltages, but many of the others are very low voltage devices. Any old NPN analog transistor will likely have a collector-base breakdown of over a hundred volts, and often have a collector-emitter breakdown limit of near that amount. So, they just seem to be the hardier devices.
I suppose that one could go back to the old tube type radios for even more hardening, but that’s too rustic for me. I’ll stick with the old analog dogs, that are old but not antique! I guess I just have a hankering for the old things, and this is just another rationalization for me to collect more of them.
WB8LZR 