[TenTec] If you ground it - it will come!

[Stuart Rohre]

Usually, we had in our club, believed the presence of a Red Cross DC 
grounded ground plane antenna atop the club tower did provide a static bleed 
off.  There have been confirmed sightings of minor "hits" to the ground 
plane during other storms before we lost the VHF rig, and a power supply to 
the coax shield hit.

We are planning on pulling off the antenna stack of GP and beams, and 
putting a better ground path around the rotator.  We suspect the DC path of 
the GP may have been degraded in a hit.

A grounded tower usually provides a "cone of protection" around the area 
where the tower sits.  It does this by constantly bleeding off charges 
accumulating at the top.

Stuart
K5KVH