Actually, Tom, quite the contrary....All of my cables are bonded at the
top of the tower AND at the bottom of the tower. There's only 15 feet
between the tower and the entrance panel.
All the cables come through a Microflect entrance panel and go directly
to a SPGP where all of the Polyphasers are mounted. Each piece of radio
gear has a separate bond that goes to the SPGP also. The entrance panel
is bonded to the grounding field via two 6" wide copper straps.
Therefore the total square inches of cable entering the shack equals or
is less than the total area of bonding strap leaving the shack.
I'm leaning towards the EMP as the culprit. It's the only potential
hazard I didn't address by putting a Halo around the shack since my
shack is right under the tower cone.
I've had my tower up for 25 years and never took a hit either until now.
Of course, in talking with other area residents, they've never seen a
storm like this one. It just hung around with constant lightning for
hours.
-----Original Message-----
From: rfi-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:rfi-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of Tom Rauch
Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 3:40 PM
To: KC2TN; 'Michael Neverdosky'; rfi@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RFI] grounding your ham equipment
> I had all of the Polyphaser protectors in place with a
> significant
> grounding field. 24 ground rods spaced appropriately all
> connected with
> 2" copper strap cadwelded together.
>
> The most interesting loss however was my 756ProII. It was
> disconnected
> except for an ALC line attached to my AMP. The amp was
> also
> disconnected.
I'd wager you missed something else besides the LAN cable,
like perhaps a bond between all the cables entering the
room?
I have nowhere near that type of ground system at the house,
don't have a single polyphaser anywhere, leave all the miles
and miles of cables and antennas connected, my radios all
stay connected, my VCR's TV's and modems connected, and my
tallest tower takes at least a dozen hits a year. Since I
moved here in 1999 I haven't lost so much as a modem,
although I have had heliax melt in two out at the big tower.
99% of it is in how the cables are routed and bonded.
73 Tom
_______________________________________________
RFI mailing list
RFI@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi
_______________________________________________
RFI mailing list
RFI@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi
|