Topband: GDT's for receive ant's

[KEN CARUSO]

Hi Dave,
 
I have some design experience for POTS lightning protection. GDTs were sometimes used but by the end of my design career we were using mostly
solid state devices (TVS and other SCR like devices).
 
Our golden rule was to avoid turning common mode surges into differential mode as even the solid state devices  would have differing turn-on thresholds which would result in higher voltage stresses on the downstream electronics. This meant the protection would go only across tip to ring and never tip-to-ground or ring to ground. GDT's were even worse in this respect.
 
Having said that, I would recommend you dig around for articles written by K3NA related to phased array receive antennas used on Ducie etc. He thought through protection schemes that involved GDTs, Fuses and TVS solutions. Very thorough designs.
 
I think his designs were documented in the Sept/Oct 2008 and Nov/Dec 2008 NCJs but I was not able to find an archived copy on the web, though this seems to be a version of what I remember:
 
https://ncjweb.com/bonus-content/200807NCJVP6DXreceiveantenna1.pdf
 
73,
 
Ken - WO1N