[TowerTalk] Re: Static, Lightning, and protection

[Bill Tippett]

W0UN wrote:
 >With a dozen years at the CO location the correlation between
properly grounded towers and a significant reduction of strikes
was very strong.  To the extent that I worried about lightning damage
until I got the big tower up and then I never had any more strikes
to the house and tower area, and the one lone strike to the barn.

         Another footnote to this.  It seems that only a bare tower
is insufficient to dissipate the charge buildup.  Since moving
back to NC from CO, I put the same 150' tower up in one location
and then added 30' to it at my present location (now 180').  In
both cases, the tower had no antennas on it as it did in CO (3 el
KLM 40 and 5 el KLM 20...with all elements grounded at the boom).
In both cases with the bare tower here in NC, I have had NUMEROUS
direct lightning hits.

                                                 73,  Bill  W4ZV