Topband: Lightning protectors

[Rick Stealey]

The subject of lightning protectors on the 4 square system that has been going on today (some great work, Guys) has me wondering about the design of them.  A Polyphasor lightning protector has a blocking cap, and a gas tube (plus a box, and a couple coax connectors).  Presumeably there are gas tubes that fire at different  voltages, and thats why the arrestors are spec'd at  different power levels. 
But why are there HF, and VHF protectors?  Is it just because the HF capacitors are not efficient at VHF, because of inherent inductance?  
I have a couple VHF protectors, and see them on ebay much more often than the HF protectors.  Is there any reason I should not be able to take a VHF protector and put in an .01 cap and use it on HF.  I mean.... the lightning doesn't know or care what the label on the protector says, does it?  (there is no such thing as a vhf or an hv gas tube, is there?)
I've never seen a construction article on "build your own lightning arrestor,"  And I wonder what's the big deal?  I'd like to take an aluminum box, put a bunch of SO239 connectors on it, some caps, and some gas tubes, and integrate it all together.  The heck with this $65 per lightning arrestor stuff.  Anyone have any knowledge on this subject?

Rick  K2XT



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