[Towertalk] More on Lightning protection

[ted demopoulos]

If I recall correctly, K1DG planned on 4 sets of guys, reasoning that 4 sets 
are better than 3. He had installed 2 sets so far, planning on installing 
the final 2 the next day, when a big windstorm came by. As he had erected 
his tower in a swamp to avoid being near any tall trees that might possibly 
fall down in such a storm and injure his tower, and the tower and stacks 
spun to the ground with such amazing force, the tower inverted. To this day, 
it is upside down and quite stable since he did, according to plan, install 
the 3rd and 4th set of guys the following day.

The tower had a 20m stack, however the resonance was slightly changed, and 
it became a very effective 440Mhz moonbounce antenna.

Unfortunately, seasonal variations due to changes in ground conductivity and 
mosquito breeding patterns regularly effect the resonace of the inverted 
array. This alone has been citing as the prime cause of his winning the 
Poisson d'Avril contest since its inception.

I do have some doubts as to the validity of the results, since we have a 
sample set of size 1. I believe, at least in major part, that Doug's 
contesting results are due to 4 sets being better than 3. I further 
postulate that the number of guys is even more important when one is in a 
less propagationally blessed area than New England. I would suggest for 
those in the "Black Holes" of W0/W8/W9, BY9/BY0 and JT that 5 to 6 sets of 
guys per tower may be more appropriate.

Scientifically yours es 73
Ted KR1G


>From: "David Robbins" <k1ttt@arrl.net>
>To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
>Subject: RE: [Towertalk] More on Lightning protection
>Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 22:33:36 -0000
>
> > Well, there seems to be two approaches t lightning:
> >
> > 1. Protect your equipment in the event of a hit.
> >
> > 2. Do something that reduces the probability of a hit.
> >
> >
> > My question is : Can approach #2 reduce that probability to zero?
> >
> > If not, better go with #1.
>
>I seem to remember that k1dg had the ultimate way to reduce the chance
>of getting hit by lightning to zero some years ago.  It was quite by
>accident that he installed a tower upside down placing the yagi's
>underground, I guess he was just way ahead of his time!
>
>
>David Robbins K1TTT
>e-mail: mailto:k1ttt@arrl.net
>web: http://www.k1ttt.net
>AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
>
>
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