K4VUD Charlie wrote:
>More on lightning:
>Put a lightning suppressor inside the shack, and near your radios, too,
>as suggested is dumb (pardon me). Do you want lightning inside your
>home? Inside your wire trace very near the rig?
>UNPLUG DISCONNECT etc. There is no such thing as a
>direct-hit-lightning-"suppresor" (the name tells you something, it does
>not say "lightning protector") at ham radio prices. 73, K4VUD Charlie
With all due respect, Charlie, and I think there are such things as
"direct-hit-lighting-suppressors". Go visit your local TV station
and ask them if they unplug all their feedlines during stormy
weather. They broadcast right through the storms while taking direct
hits to their towers.
I don't pretend to expect this kind of protection with my shoestring
budget, pea-shooter station. However I sure as hell won't depend on
unplugging and throwing my feedlines out the window when I think
conditions are dangerous if I can arrange a better alternative.
For my new station my feedlines, AC distribution, phone lines,
antenna switch lines, EVERYTHING will going to go via the most serious
ground window connected to the biggest collection of bonded ground rods I
can create. So if the lightning doesn't cooperate in regards to its
route I can't say I didn't try to arrange the best place for it.
Whether the ground window is inside or outside my (wooden) shack
seems laughably irrelevant when millions of volts are involved. But
I've settled on an outside location with the feedlines passing down
close to the ground and then back up to the suppressors as a tribute
to the gods of superstition (going to direct that lightning right
down into the dirt, yep).
Today I have been a Ham exactly one year, so you and most of the
other reflector members have a great deal more experience and I really
hesitate to speak out on any subject where I don't have at least an
illusion of empirical data. However my house and shack are just
below the crest of a ridge and from time to time I live through
"artillery barrage" style lightning storms. There is a 60 foot
vertical "tatoo" on one of my Poplar trees, for example. I
simply can't be comfortable with less than a serious effort in
this department, within the limits of my budget. When I'm done
I'll have two thirds of the cost of my (albeit cheap) transceiver
sunk into a ground and suppressor system and my wife is going to be
quite angry when the next VISA statement comes. But in my humble
opinion, its worth it.
Oh, the house service panel will shortly have an MOV unit the size
of a hocky puck as a first line of defense for the wiring and major
appliances. All the electronics in the house, cable and phones
already have MOV protection at each site. When the Poplar got its
tatoo last year my electronics were unphased, while my next door
neighbor (much farther from the tree) got his TV smoked. I want
to believe that my past actions to prepare resulted in that difference.
For me it isn't "if" but "when".
(But I won't be pretending I'm a TV station. Prior to and during
storms the transceiver and tuner ports will be grounded!)
Interested readers may find the URL below "enlightning". It covers
the full range of notions about the subject.
http://www.4w.com/ham/ka9fox/lightning_and_towers.txt
To cq-contest: Thanks for making my first year with this hobby an
INCREDIBLE experience!
Regards,
Pete
KS4XG
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