At 08:52 PM 5/20/03 -0500, Wes Attaway \(N5WA\) wrote:
>Your story is a perfect example of why disconnecting feedlines is
>not real good protection if proper attention was not paid to the
>overall grounding scheme of the station. The scenario you
>describe happened because single-point grounding was not in
>place. If you do not tie house electrical service and telco
>grounds to the tower ground and main station ground point then
>you will have many avenues that lead to trouble.
Agreed. On the other hand, investing hundreds of dollars in coax and
rotator cable protectors won't help in this case either. It's not just
single-point grounding, either, but single point low inductance grounding,
which may or may not be possible depending on where your station is
located. In a second floor ham-shack, with no possibility of
low-inductance grounding, I am comfortable that disconnecting every
conductor from the tower is about as good as I can do. On some level of
probability, I may still get damage, but I think this is a legitimate,
cost-effective way of lowering the risk.
73, Pete N4ZR
The World HF Contest Station Database was updated 9 May 03.
Are you current? www.pvrc.org/wcsd/wcsdsearch.htm
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