Lightning.....yawn

[bill.lumnitzer at paonline.com]

 Pa> Personally, I have never been pursuaded by the argument that you
 Pa> should ground ANYTHING for lightning protection. Why attach a nice
 Pa> healthy fat ground to a tower to ATTRACT the lightning? This
 Pa> isn't lightning protection - this is lightning ATTRACTION!

 Pa> See the case of the guy who had his tower hit every time a storm
 Pa> came by.....  saving his nieghbours from being hit!!!!!!!!!

 Pa> For this reason, I consider anybody who spends time and money
 Pa> on all this PolyPhaser garbage as wasting their time and money....
 Pa> completely!

A coworker recently had his new house struck, setting the roof on fire and 
destroying the second story. He was not a ham and had no towers, trees, or other
means of "attracting" lightning.  What is the probability of his house being
struck versus one of his neighbors? Or a neighboring ham?  I presume it is
very low and he was simply unlucky. BUT - I feel very confident in stating that
IF he had a properly grounded tower/lightning rod next to his house (and Josylns
in his service panel), he would still have a roof! 

After a recent conversation with my agent, I discovered that I'm eligible for
a LIGHTNING ROD DISCOUNT on
my homeowners insurance! I currently have a 120'(soon to be 140') tower (with
lightning rod) near my house that has been struck previously with NO damage.
Several of my neighbors, on the other hand, have had TV antennas and trees
struck and HAVE suffered damage. Since installing Josyln protectors in the
service panel, and ICE protectors on the coax, several storms have damaged
appliances and electronics in the neighborhood, but not in my house. I'll
keep my ground rods, thank you.

 Pa> As for the base exploding stuff .....  well, most of the towers in
 Pa> the USA are healthily guyed (you see very few free standing).
 Pa> With a guyed tower, it's not (or shouldn't be) the BASE that's keeping
 Pa> the thing up!
 Pa> _ _ _ _ _
 Pa> Paul Evans, W4/G4BKI   paul at paccomm.com  +1 (813) 874-2980        

I'm not very concerned about the possibility that the base of my guyed tower
may explode since the base could be omitted and the tower would still stay up!
The concrete anchors are a different story however, and I don't care to find
out if they can explode. Each one is connected to an 8' ground rod tied radially
to the ground field (3 rods, radials, and screen) at the base of the tower.

73 Bill N6CQ/3  (n6cq at paonline.com)

>From Brian Short <ke7gh at PrimeNet.Com>  Wed Jun 21 23:41:20 1995
From: Brian Short <ke7gh at PrimeNet.Com> (Brian Short)
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 15:41:20 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Field Day Help
Message-ID: <199506212241.PAA29143 at usr4.primenet.com>

Gentlemen, I have a technical question, sil vous plait.

I am setting up a last minute 1B, 1-Op Field Day from a very remote 
area of Arizona.  Will run FT-890, laptop, computer keying,  battery
power, etc.  The site is high, about 6000 feet, but there are no tall
trees only short juniper and pinon pine (big shruberies).  This is
likely an advantage as there is no attenuation by the foilage, but
it leaves me without a high support for a wire.  I have constructed
a 4'x4' base to mount a TV type tripod.  I have 30 feet of mast I 
can use.  The question, what antenna to use?  I have already packed 
a full size 160m inverted vee, a Carolina Windom (80-10), and a half
size G5RV (just in case).  I could, of course, build something else.
What antenna would you recommend?  First choice would be one already
built.  BTW I plan to operate 20m, 40m, 80m, and would like to try
160 despite QRN.  The 890 has the autotuner and I also have a little
MFJ tuner for portable.  Also in mothballs, I have a 40m loop, a 30m
loop, 17m loop, and a few short dipoles for higher bands.  Didn't
see these as useful right now, but there you go.

I hope the Ranchers' cattle don't graze through in the night.  They roam
freely!  I can do whatever I want, too, since I own 40 acres of it 
anyway.  Well, that describes the problem, degrees of freedom, etc.
If you care to, please send me some comments, soon as I take off Friday
morning for the 200 mile drive to DM-54, Apache County, Arizona etc.

BTW: I am aware multiple 100' towers etc would be a good solution!  At
this time I have 30 feet of TV mast.

My Sincere Thanks, 73, de Brian