[TenTec] Station power supply??

[Stuart Rohre]

Heavy Copper flashing or thicker copper plate is lower inductance to RF 
and lightning than wire.  Copper Braid can be blown apart by lightning 
surges.

A sheet of thick copper is now pretty much out of the question for many 
hams due to price increases, but diligent creativity might re-purpose a 
brass door pull plate, And certainly aluminum is a good conductor, if 
proper anti-oxidation connection technique is used to bond it to other 
metals.

There are purpose built commercial entry plates for bringing in feed 
lines and grounding before entry into a building and if your operating 
desk backs up to a window, these grounding / entry plates could be used.

Wire if used, should be short, and large gauge.  Some have used copper 
pipe as the common bus behind the desk.  You want a short straight path 
out of the building to earth from any of these.

And within the shack, avoid double grounding, such as the negative of 
the power supply, if tied to chassis at the radio, should NOT be tied 
inside the power supply to that chassis, as likely that chassis will 
have a 3 wire cord grounding to AC system ground of the building.
And that AC ground outside, SHOULD be bonded to your RF cables entry 
panel.  Likewise, a tower should have ground rods or crowfoot grounds to 
dissipate any charge buildup on the tower from a hit or a nearby hit.

Web pages of Poly Phasor and lightning protection companies have more 
detailed information on mitigation methods, depending on how deep your 
pockets are.


-Stuart Rohre
K5KVH