Topband: Lightning and Beverages

[Brad Rehm]

"Just wondering what effective measures anyone has discovered to avoid
this
problem...."

Don,

The TO-220 termination resistor on one of my Beverages was blown to
pieces in a storm a few weeks ago.  Along with that, the contacts on a
relay I use to disconnect the transformer and take the antennas to
ground were vaporized.  This happened even though I have 70 Volt gas
discharge tubes across each incoming Beverage line.

When I replaced the resistor,  I added a fuse in series with the
resistor.  The antenna seems to work FB.  In time, I'll find out if I
need a fuse at each end of the antenna.  Changing fuses could become a
nuisance though.

We've just begun using the Ohmite OX and OY resistors that Tom
mentioned when we need low-inductance resistors at my company.  Three
or four of those in parallel ought to do very well in this
application.

Brad, KV5V