At 11:35 AM 12/13/02 -0600, Tony Casciato, AI9X wrote:
>I appreciate all the research/hard-work/advice that the tower owners have -
>and someday I will have one or more (next QTH) myself. For a small TH2 beam
>at 26', is this enough protection - or too much? I think that most tripod TV
>antennas don't have near this much planning...but its my house!!
For whatever this is worth, I continue to believe that the best lightning
protection an amateur station can have is to disconnect all conductors
coming from the tower when the station is not in use. Our shacks are often
compromises as to location, and are almost never totally correct and fully
worked-out with respect to single-point grounding (SPG), etc. In my case,
my shack is on the second floor, meaning that my ground line is 30-odd feet
long and contains several right-angle bends. What is the likelihood that
this inductive ground will hold the shack ground at ground potential during
a direct strike? Essentially nil. It's been argued that doesn't matter as
long as all your equipment is properly grounded to the SPG, because the
equipment grounds will rise and fall together. Maybe so, but how can you
be sure you have achieved that precarious ideal? We don't need to be
connected 24/7, so why do it?
I'm knocking wood as I say this, but my station's 104-foot tower has held
up through 7 thunderstorm seasons so far, and many cloud-to-ground strikes
within 1000 feet, with no special measures except good tower grounding and
disconnecting all cables at the bulkhead going into the house. Maybe it's
just luck, but ...
73, Pete N4ZR
Sometimes a tower is just a tower
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