[TenTec] Station Grounding-The Debate Rages

[Mike Gorniak]

Hello John,

Ouch! Yes, you live in an area with high lightning activity. Your "8 
foot ground rod in sandy soil" obviously is not getting the job done for 
you. I suspect that it's not meeting the National Electrical Code 
requirements, given the problems that you are reporting.

Check out sections 250.53 (A)(C)(F), 250.56, and 250.24.

These sections will give you some advice as to how you can evaluate the 
effectiveness of your ground system, as well as how you can improve it.

Good Luck!

73,

Mike
NM7X

~Original Message~

Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:03:53 -0500
From: "John WA4JM" <wa4jm at earthlink.net>
Subject: [TenTec] Station Grounding-The Debate Rages

Hello All,

I live in West Central Florida where we have an average of 90 thunderstorm
days a year.  During these storm it's not unusual to have as many as 2,000
air to ground strikes.  Anyone who's lived here or been here knows what I'm
refering to.

When I leave the house in the morning EVERYTHING gets disconnected 
including
my DSL modem that used to get smoked regularly.  I disconnect power,
antennas etc.

My RF ground system IS NOT tied to the power ground which by the way is
terminated by Tampa Electric to a 8 foot ground rod in sandy soil beneath
the meter.

However one can argue that it is tied to Tampa Electric by virtue of the
system being connected when things are powered up.

The code is for SAFETY.  Not lightning mitigation.

The comment "The commercial sites don't run out and disconnect everything
 > > when the clouds form. Ditto for the VHF/UHF ham FM systems." is true.

However, lightning keeps broadcast engineers here in Florida busy along 
with
operators of repeaters.

73, me



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