[TowerTalk] newbie, Installing a 80' crank up

Joe L Blackwell aa4nn@juno.com
Tue, 12 Oct 1999 09:56:28 -0400


Little choice but to put the 89' US Tower crankup six feet from the house
on this small lot on a point into Lake Wylie.  Have had several hits with
no damage.  My neighbor happend to see two of those hits and said the
strike was to the top of the tower itself rather than to the antennas
riding
above the top.  Each tower leg is grounded using copper tubing of the
kind used to carry refrigerant in air conditioning systems.  At this
point
in time, call me a lucky feller.
73, de Joe AA4NN

On Mon, 11 Oct 1999 10:38:23 EDT K7LXC@aol.com writes:
> 
> In a message dated 99-10-11 09:58:19 EDT, brian_smithson@vds.com 
> writes:
> 
> > > Regarding tower placement, the rule of thumb is a minimum of 50 
> feet
> >  > away from the nearest person or structure.  A tower will tend 
> to
> >  > attract lightning, so you don't want to attract it right near 
> your home
> >  
> >  I've marked out a spot for the base of my 2nd Trylon
> >  self-supporting to be close to a barn in our backyard.
> >  The barn is >300' from the house, but the tower will
> >  (was going to) be less than 10' from the barn. I'm
> >  planning a pretty extensive ground system - am i still
> >  asking for trouble?
> 
>        Good  question - I haven't seen that 'rule of thumb' before. 
> Since a 
> tall object (tower, tree, bigger structure of some sort, etc.) 
> offers a 'cone 
> of protection' and mostly protects objects under it in the COP, I 
> would say 
> that (with a proper ground system) close proximity is not a 
> negative. Almost 
> ALL commercial equipment buildings are VERY CLOSE to their towers 
> and many 
> routinely get lightning strikes with no damage to tower, building or 
> 
> equipment. 
> 
>        The ROT isn't a bad idea but usually not very practical. If 
> the tower 
> is that far away, then it's pretty much decoupled from other nearby 
> structures. 
> 
> Cheers,   Steve   K7LXC
> Tower Tech
>       
> 
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Vy 73, de Joe AA4NN
Eastern Top Band ARC,  Carolina DX Assn,  Carolina CW Ops,
Fairfield County Contesters, Ten-Tec only, CW only.
eeetet   ee

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