[Towertalk] Ground wire impedance

Martin Ewing ewing@alum.mit.edu
Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:49:48 -0400


My house has stranded lightning cables from the previous owner (run parallel to 
CATV wiring - but that's another story).

I reckon that keeping your house from burning down does not require as good a 
grounding as keeping your MOSFETs running.   Installing stranded cable must be a 
lot easier than solid, but maybe there's more to it.

I found some Canadian govt spec that says that stranded cabling is REQUIRED. 
See http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/regulations/regs/lr1352.htm. There seem to be a 
lot of prescriptions in this business, but not much analytical or experimental data.

Martin

W1UK wrote:
> Steve,
> 
> I am curious as to why all the building lightning rod systems I have seen on
> barns and homes use stranded wire in a rope lay,  from the rod to the ground
> field?
> 
> Harger Lightning Protection sells many sizes of multi strand bonding
> conductors.  They identify them with their cross-sectional area measured in
> cm.  I also have a few Andrews hardline grounding kits that use stranded
> wire.
> 
> Perhaps manufacturers sacrifice some performance for flexibility?
> 

-- 
Martin Ewing AA6E ewing@alum.mit.edu
Branford, Connecticut